The Time Traveler's Co-Pilot: Guiding Your Child Through the College Decision

Welcome!

Good evening, everyone. I look around this room and see something truly powerful: a group of dedicated high school parents. Thank you for taking the time to be here tonight. You are already demonstrating the kind of focus your child needs.

I want us to spend our time together exploring one of the most significant moments in your child’s life—the college decision. My goal is simple: I want you to leave here excited, energized, and deeply focused on how you can help your child make the absolute best choice.

(This article is an excerpt from PFR's parent program provided for high schools. It is a part of a broader set of curriculum, seminars, classes, and tools dedicated to helping high school students and their families make the BEST college decision!)

My name is Jeff Hulett and I'm a decision confidence builder. I lead Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education organization. I am a faculty member at James Madison University, focusing on Finance and Economics. My experience includes leading banking organizations.

Before we begin, I'd like to learn a little more about you. By a show of hands, who is from a legacy-generation family? These are families where at least 1 parent went to college. Hands up!

For those who did not raise their hand, that means a solid number of you are from first-generation families. This is where college is not a lived experience in your household. To the first-gen folks -- I want to say a big THANK YOU.  You are breaking family barriers. You are an intrepid explorer, to be the first from your family to send a child to college. We will be discussing college success for all, whether legacy gen or first gen.

Before we jump in, I want to share the most important part of my background. My wife and I have four children, 3 boys and a girl. Today, they are all young adults and fully launched. So my wife and I have gone full cycle. We are now parent consultants! Our children are all college graduates, some with advanced degrees. They all have good jobs and healthy relationships. They are all happy. So what I share with you today has been fully tested -- in high schools, in colleges, and even in my own family. I know our approach works, and I am happy to share it with you!

What is Our Job as a Parent?

Let's start with a deceptively obvious question:

What is our job as parents?

We immediately think of day-to-day things, right? Keeping our children safe, providing a good education, encouraging activities like sports, music, or enabling time to play and connect with friends. These are all vital, and we pour our hearts into them.

But I believe there is a much bigger, much deeper job of the parent. I see the primary job of the parent is to help our children be the best decision makers they can be.

If you look at the big picture, decision-making is an ongoing scaffolding process woven into much of our parenting. It starts when our children are very young. They make almost no decisions as babies or toddlers. Then, at some point, we start handing them small decision-making responsibilities: putting on their own clothes, choosing a snack, or deciding how they want to help with chores.

As they move into adolescence, their decision responsibility grows. They navigate social dynamics, manage their study time, and decide which activities earn their energy.

In many ways, college is the halfway house to adult decisions.

College is where we send them off on their own to manage personal health, hygiene, studying, and friendships, but still with a safety net provided by the university and, of course, us, the parents. Then, finally, they blast off into full adulthood, and the decision training wheels come off.

Consider this staggering statistic: Based on an article from Harvard University, American adults, on average, make an estimated 30,000 decisions a day. Thirty thousand!

We know decision-making is incredibly important. Good decisions, especially personal finance decisions, are what lead to long-term wealth, security, and stability.

Super Complex Decisions: A Call to Focus

And here we are. You are at the point to help your child make the college decision.

Of course, this is a decision about their future ability to get a job and participate in our economy. More than this, though, it’s a massive decision which could involve debt or the opportunity cost of deploying hundreds of thousands of dollars. It almost seems unthinkable a high school student should be the beneficial owner of such a massive choice. But here we are.

Understanding why the college decision is going to be one of the most challenging they will ever make is really important. It will help you be a better co-pilot for your child. So let’s talk about it.

I’m a decision scientist, a behavioral economist, and a choice architect. I’ve spent my entire professional life helping individuals and large corporations make decisions.

It’s always fascinating to me how people fashion themselves as great decision makers. The reality is, it’s actually very difficult to be good at this, and it always requires a disciplined process. It amazes me how often I hear people say, "Well, I decided because it just felt good."

The truth is, there is absolutely a consistent, repeatable decision process you should use. If you are already using one, I congratulate you. If you are not, this is my encouragement.

Let’s quickly build a foundation. We categorize those 30,000 daily decisions into three kinds.

1. Simple Decisions

The vast, vast majority are relatively low-impact, simple decisions. This is like the binary choice when you get up in the morning and decide which foot to put on the floor first. Or what color socks to wear. Or the parking spot you choose before walking into this program. These are NOT the decisions causing people problems.

2. Complex Decisions

The second kind is the complex decision. These mainly have an economic tenure to them; they are the domain of personal finance. In my college classes, complex decisions are the primary focus.

Say you’re buying a car. You have many criteria: safety, fuel efficiency, cost, style. The complexity comes in the weighing—we are only buying one car, and we need to be clear about its purpose and the trade-offs. On top of this, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of alternatives to consider. It is the volume of tradeoffs and alternatives, plus the dynamic nature of those tradeoffs creating the complexity.

Also, the risk of putting on the wrong color socks is certainly different from the risk of buying a $30,000 car not matching your needs.

3. Super Complex Decisions: Time Travel Required

But there is an even more challenging decision type. We call this the super complex decision. There are not very many of them; you can pretty much count them on one hand. The two best examples are getting married and making the college decision.

Let’s use the college decision to demonstrate why super complex choices are so challenging.

The beneficiary of this decision is a soon-to-graduate high schooler. Their brain is not yet mature, which presents one challenge. But the real challenge of super complexity is the need for Time Travel.

• The soon-to-graduate high schooler needs to get into a time machine.

• They need to teleport themselves about 10 years into the future, to when they are in their late 20s.

• They open the door and walk out into this future world. They experience it as their future self. They figure out the kind of job they will get as a result of their college education. They figure out where they live, the kind of people they will be around, and the kind of person they will become.

• Then, this future self gathers all that data, jumps back into the time machine, and travels back to the present.

• The future self then has a conversation with their current high school self. Because here is the thing: only the current self can make the decision.

The current self uses the information about what the future looks like to start what is already a complex decision—one which has complex criteria and an extraordinary number of college alternatives. But now you add on the time travel requirement.

Your New Job: The Time Traveler’s Co-Pilot

Now, time travel is just a metaphor, but the reality is, it is very difficult for most people to predict 10 years into the future confidently, especially when they have NOT done it before! Sometimes it really feels like a stab in the dark.

But it doesn’t have to be. This is where the parent comes in. You have an extremely important role. You are the Time Traveler’s Co-Pilot.

Your job is to get into the time machine with your student. Travel together into the future. When you get there, show them around. Help them understand what the future looks like with their college education.

Maybe you invite a few others along with you—trusted mentors, teachers, or family friends—who offer a little different perspective but also understand what the future looks like. Then all of you can jump back, go back to the present, and have the discussion with the current self.

Together, you can make a great decision.

The First Generation Opportunity

Much has been written on the first-generation college student. The data is clear: the chances of a poor outcome for a new high school graduate from a first-generation family are much greater than for a legacy-generation family.

And there is truly only one reason for the difference. It is because the first-generation college student may not have the kind of time-travel partner who truly understands what the future looks like, such as all the little success habits of a college student and what life will be like with a college degree.

I want to be real careful here: Mom and Dad, first-family folks, you are awesome. You have gotten to where you are for a very important reason. The fact you are here tonight is amazing. But since a college education is not your lived experience, it just makes sense the time travel will be more difficult for you.

But that’s okay!

Now you know your job as a time-traveling partner. You can surround your child with others who are also time-travel partners. But please be with them on their time travel journey. They need you there. They love you and need your approval.

The point is to bring in some others: a minister, a teacher, a counselor, a family friend who has done the time travel. Someone you and your family trust.

Of course, for those legacy-generation parents here today, you have a massive opportunity. You can be the primary time-travel partner to help them understand what the future looks like. And I get it, sometimes it is not even clear to you. So I encourage you as well: bring in time-travel partners.

Your Time Travel Resources

I work with many first-generation-focused high school programs across the United States. Let me tell you about some of the time-travel resources I recommend to my students.

1. The Data Map: Department of Education & BLS

The first is a data source from the Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows their forecast for the fastest-growing job categories in the United States.

For a time traveler, this is an amazing resource. It’s going to show you where the future demand is. So when you think about a college and you think about a major, think about this list of jobs and pick one. It doesn’t mean you are forever locked into one industry or job, but it is an amazing start. It provides confidence in a great time travel outcome!

2. The Decision Tool: Personal Finance Reimagined

My company, Personal Finance Reimagined, provides college-specific decision-making tools, curriculum, and seminars. This is where a high school student, with the help of their time travel partners, can get really specific about what is important to them about college. Here is the thing -- it is different for everyone.

Research shows that FOMO - or the psychology of the "Fear of Missing Out" - is a real challenge for high schoolers.

It is natural for high schoolers to compare themselves to their friends, like "so and so is going to Harvard." The point is, the best decision is based on what is important to the student, not someone else. If the decision process points to Harvard, by all means, go there. If not, go to the best college for YOU.

Students use our tools as a way to talk to time travel partners and gather feedback on how to think about their criteria. It captures all this information. It has information about the 4,000 or so colleges in our country, including their cost. We roll all this together to help the students ask the right questions and ultimately be the best time traveler they can be. So while they are in the future, they know the questions to ask.

Conclusion: Hope and Focus

Here is the thing: college is a wonderful experience. But today, it can also be very expensive.

The better we time travel, the better we understand what is important to the individual about their college experience, the better we are going to be able to achieve a result which will make for an amazing life—a life with wealth and health.

Your job is the Time Traveler’s Co-Pilot. It is a demanding, important, and hopeful job. Your focused help, your wisdom, and your willingness to guide them into their future is the greatest gift you can give right now.

Thank you for your time today. I have a little time for questions now, but we can certainly have follow-ups later as well.

Infographic leave behind for parents