Deconstructing the College Tour

At many colleges and universities, summer is a time when the otherwise quiet campus becomes periodically punctuated with small groups of prospective students and their parents, all participating in the well-established summer ritual of visiting colleges and taking the prescribed campus tours. I pass them on my way to the library, these throngs of eager students and anxious parents led by an often enthusiastic and energetic guide. Sometimes I listen in on the dazzling descriptions of courses offered, extra-curriculars available, and campus amenities provided. In the competitive rush to attract the best students, the campus tour has become an important tool in marketing the institution to an increasingly informed and demanding public.

As someone whose education and career have included several kinds of institutions of higher learning, I have had the opportunity to observe and even participate in many different kinds of campus tours myself. While these tours naturally reflect the particularities of each individual institution, there nevertheless seem to be certain striking commonalities which speak to how American higher education markets itself to prospective students and their parents.

For example, while campus tours almost always include mention of various course offerings, I find that the emphasis is nevertheless usually on the extra-curricular amenities the institution provides, the alluring lifestyle the university promises in its mad dash to recruit the best students and assure a steady consumer base. Students are often made to tour impressive, multi-million dollar athletic facilities, replete with the now-standard climbing walls and “dive-in” movie nights (hyperlink http://www.aquaticsintl.com/2005/mar/0503_campus.html);to taste an increasingly diverse array of organic, upscale, and exotic foods; and to explore ever-luxuriating living arrangements, such as these recent marvels at various taxpayer-supported institutions (hyperlink http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/living/dorm-rooms/index.html). Indeed, it appears as though now even public colleges and universities are trying to create a campus that resembles, in Mark Edmundsen’s memorable phrase, a “retirement spread for the young” (hyperlink http://www.student.virginia.edu/~decweb/lite/3.html). And it seems that country club living is not just the purview of the wealthy private college anymore; even community colleges are now responding to the new needs of its student consumers and are getting in on the game. (hyperlink http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/27/younger-wealthier-students-pick-community-college-bringing-expectations).

What troubles me about this material turn in the American campus tour is not only that it tends to de-emphasize the academic engagement of the university community but also that it can actually undermine the values of equality and democracy that American higher education ostensibly supports. As campus luxuries increase, so does the cost of higher education itself, thus decreasing the accessibility of a college education for many folks who might otherwise be willing and able to attend. Furthermore, even many first-generation students who, through a combination of grants, loans and/or work-study programs, are able to attend a four-year college or university often find themselves out of place or uncomfortable in an environment where luxury has become the new norm. The social isolation sometimes faced by these students can make college a more difficult ordeal than it needs to be and may help to explain, at least in part, why so many otherwise academically qualified first-generation students fail to complete their degrees.

But the campus tour can also do harm to those non-first-generation students who are led to believe, as they are introduced to ever-expanding campus luxuries, that somehow their hard high school work has earned them these amenities, that monster-size stadiums, spacious student centers, and campus tanning salons are the natural rewards of their adolescent labors. Such students find themselves at the unfortunate intersection of entitlement and meritocracy, a place where they are told, at least implicitly, that they have somehow earned these vast expenditures made on their behalf. Indeed, the overinflated “edifice complex” that leads many universities to build and expand ever-multiplying campus buildings (many designed with student comfort and enjoyment in mind) often leads to an overinflated sense of entitlement on the part of students. Most devastating of all, though, is the moment when students realize, usually as they near graduation, that life after college does not offer the same easy rewards that the campus tour, with its overemphasis on student services and comfort, seems to promise. In the current economy, only the most concerted, consistent efforts can help students to find gainful employment, and even those who push themselves often end up unemployed or working in a job that does not require a college degree. In this way, the campus tour takes an ironically cruel turn; it promises the keys to a kingdom that in the end proves illusory for so many students. It whispers softly that these campus luxuries are part of your life now, that these comforts and amenities have now become part of your life’s landscape, thus setting students up for a fall as they come to terms with the reality of an economy in which one in two college graduates are either jobless or underemployed (hyperlink http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/22/job-market-college-graduates_n_1443738.html).

Universities, and faculty members in particular, must take back the campus tour by insisting on its academic content. Yes, prospective students should be shown the dormitories and the dining halls and be made familiar with the various facilities the campus has to offer, but not at the cost of underemphasizing the key mission of higher education, which is to educate students and provide them with opportunities for meaningful engagement with the world of ideas. By taking back the campus tour in this way, we help our students to set up more realistic expectations for their lives not only while in college but also for the future that awaits them upon graduation. Thus we help them to transition more smoothly into post-university life and to avoid the inevitable shock that results as reality clashes with expectation, especially when the expectation arises, to a significant degree, from the students’ own initial encounter with university life, namely, the campus tour.