Yeah I know, my comment wasn’t intended to be a strike against that document, (as you can see, it’s included throughout the links I compiled in that master link). I was just making sure the OP caught that the list was recommending grad schools only.
There is a big difference between grad departments and undergrad. Indeed there are universities that claim some of the top graduate programs in the world…whereas their undergraduate schools are considered quite mediocre…and vice versa. They are essentially two different schools, and this includes faculty.
I realize the OP specifically just says “faculty members”, but (1) the poster may not have a very good understanding for how the university system currently operates, and (2) just because you can find one or two sympathetic faculty members doesn’t mean the kid is going to be able to refrain from pulling his hair out.
Sure, he might be able to slide into some office hours or end up conversing with the prof for advice or something every now and then, but other than that, simply having a free-market professor on faculty in the graduate department is not going to make even a slight difference in an undergrad’s college experience. It’s possible the prof teaches an intro course, so the kid might actually be able to have him for a single class (and therefore get priority on the prof’s attention over just some kid wanting a sane person to talk to), but even then, he’ll be lucky if the prof even does the majority of the lectures. A great deal of the time when a graduate department instructor has an intro class his involvement can be essentially just the fact that his name is on the schedule. Sure he’s probably required to hold some office hours, but what good is that if the only time he has them is when you have another class, and a TA is the one doing most of your lectures and all of your work assignments?
My ultimate point here is that, yes, it’s great to have some sympathetic faculty members, but unless you’re getting a Master’s or PhD and they’re your thesis/doctoral advisor, you’re really not going to see any sort of difference.
The only way it would possibly matter is if you have a large section of the entire department that is more or less sympathetic, like something at GMU, and you might end up seeing a difference in overall curriculum when compared to some other school.
My point is, the much more important questions for this poster and her son to answer are:
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Why exactly is he going to college? Is it just because “that’s what you’re supposed to do”? “That’s the only way to get a good job”? What are the goals the young man has and how do they see college being a worthwhile means to achieve those ends?
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Is college really necessary? Is it really the best way to achieve those goals? What other ways might he be able to go about that?
Once you answer those questions, I think it will begin to be seen that the interest in having free market-sympathetic faculty will be less and less relevant. This is largely due to the things I mentioned above about the presense of such faculty members not really being able to make a significant difference in his undergraduate experience.
Indeed, if the whole reasoning for going to college is to have a better-looking resume, and increase job opportunities, and all those common things, ultimately you’re much better off basing the decision about where to matriculate on the standard curricula: school prestige, ranking, affordability, size, convenience. (Generally in that order.)
If his reason for college is much more personal, as in he feels like it would be a good experience, he wants to delay going into the workforce, he wants a career in academia, or something along those lines, then the priorities change. There would be a much greater importance placed on affordability and enjoyment/comfort with the student environment and the nature of the instruction and the curriculum. This is where having more sympathetic faculty might be more of a concern, but again, even in this situation, simply having one or two professors on campus somewhere is not going to mean much.
Ultimately I would suggest taking a serious look at what the kid thinks he wants to do…as in what path and direction he feels he would be happiest taking in life. I realize this is not an easy thing for a teenager to do, but when you’re talking about 4-6 years of your late teens and early twenties, and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s worth a bit of investigation, education and introspection.
Other sources I recommend:
Is College Worth It? (he recommends the documentary College Conspiracy. See my review here.)
College: Why It Is Not a Bubble
The Big Question: Should I Go to College?
The Question You’re Not Asking: Should You Go To College?
Should Everyone Go To College?
Bear in mind I’m not trying to discourage anyone from going to college. I’m simply saying one should consider all options and make sure they are not just following lock-step with the “conventional wisdom” that going to college is always a good thing, and that everyone should…and basically considering it a given. As Richard Vedder points out, 12% of the mail carriers in the U.S. today now have Bachelor’s degrees. In 1970 only 3% did. Is mail carrying so much more intellectually challenging that we need more mailmen with college degrees? Or is it possible the market is getting saturated and we’re seeing a bunch of people walking around with diplomas and debt that they could easily be just fine without? Is a Bachelor’s degree (and all the time and money it takes to get one) even necessary for carrying mail in the first place?
Yes, I realize no one necessarily envisions themself (or their children) as mail carriers “when they grow up”, but the reality is something like 80+ percent of the degree-carrying workforce holds a job in a field outside of their degree major. And when one considers the cost of that diploma and the lost potential wages and experience one could have earned in those 4-6 years, the net benefit can often times be negative. Instead of coming into the workforce at 22 or 23 with no experience and tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt (that can never be written off), one might instead have 4 or 5 years experience and relationships with a company and various industry contacts, as well as no debt and a sizable amount of savings.
All I’m suggesting is that you don’t fall into the box of “not going is not an option”, and actually consider all options.