Summer programs and crazy costs

My older son is taking a college course this summer, the summer before his senior year.  He picked the course to apply to himself, and did all the applications himself.  I was only vaguely aware of the whole process until it came to look at costs and financial aid.  The program, which is one class, twice a week, for six weeks, NOT for college credit, costs $2100.  That's right, over two thousand dollars.  That is insane.  I mean, it's not even for credit, it doesn't include housing or anything else.  Just 40 hours or so of instruction, not instruction all by himself, but in a class.  Maybe I've been living in a fool's paradise until this point, but I really had no idea what things like that cost.  We were very lucky---we used two sources of financial aid and were able to get all but $100 of the cost paid for by them.  But still...why?

My son was surprised at the orientation by the lack of diversity among the students.  He's always gone to a school where he was in the minority as a white kid, and that makes sense, as we live in the city and that is the make-up of our city.  But at that program, almost none of the kids are from the city, either.  They are from rich suburbs.  Maybe there is aid for the program, as we found, but just the price tag probably scares off a lot of kids from even applying.

It struck me that what it all is is mostly like just a way to pay to get a good-looking summer program on a college application.  It's part of the game we've never played, the "plan from the time your child is born to get them into the right college" plan.  I can't get into that plan.  It just seems like a fool's game, especially when you hear about all the out of work college graduates.  Very few people from my rural high school class went to college.  Even fewer went to "good" colleges.  Yet following them all on Facebook, they have careers, families, lives where they are very comfortable and happy.  I didn't grow up in an environment where going to a good college, or even college at all, was a given goal.  Many of my friends did have parents who went to college, like mine, many didn't.  I never saw that sharp divide that I think people think exists, between the people who "got in" and the people who didn't.  My husband went to an Ivy League school, on a full scholarship.  It's been no ticket to riches, let me tell you.  I went to a state school, and I don't think that has stood in the way of anything I wanted to do.

I could go on and on.  I know education for its own sake is a good thing.  I am glad my sons want to learn, and I am happy they are getting the chance.  But the whole game has gotten out of hand.  I think someday it's going to collapse, like the housing market or the financial markets did, when someone realizes that college and getting into college has become a very expensive game.