I am not an unhappy “scold” but here I sit on a beautiful Saturday at the school end of August with this terrible job to do: I must write our annual back-to-school advice column and what I really want to say is:

Pack up your car with an excitement for learning, a desire to explore all the rich possibilities this wonderful world offers, make worthy new friends, be a worthy friend, don’t waste your parents money, the money you have earned this summer, or the taxpayer’s money if you are going to a state supported school.

Now that just about sums up my advice, but the “scold” that lives forever in parents (no matter what age we are) is really pushing to get out and mar this happy little essay. The “scold” has just read a Wall Street Journal book review on a book by Craig Brandon called The Five Year Party.

Mr. Brandon cautions us that only 30% of students actually graduate in four years, and that roughly 60% will take six years to garner a degree. That may be fine with the institutions, which will be reaping many extra dollars, but wrecks havoc with a family’s carefully-managed funds. For some the extra semesters are because of work or life circumstances that cannot be avoided, but Mr. Brandon gets pretty upset with 10 percent of liberal arts schools that he characterizes as “party schools.”

Well I am upset too, because I don’t want you to go there. If that is your only aim skip college altogether until you are worthy of the sacrifice your parents have made to help educate you. Another thing I'd like you to do is sign a paper that enables your parents to know what your grades are; now isn’t that a ridiculous necessity, but the federal government has created a law that restricts your parents from knowing almost anything about you in those four to six years that you may be bleeding their bank account dry!

Of course, you will be eager for them to know how much you are learning, and the condition of your health. Sign it! It is called Ferpa release, and we will all be happier. Of course, if you are paying all the bills, that little incidental will not be necessary.

Here is a funny thought; expect to get your money’s worth from your professors. Don’t be happy every time a class is cancelled – just consider what that hour cost you or your parents. Education is such a privilege, and yet it seems that the less we get (at college) the happier we are.

If you really don’t care to go to college, that is also an honorable choice. Don’t do it if you want to be the best electrician in the county, or the best mechanic. Those skills can best be learned in vocational schools or at the side of someone who is proficient at the trade. Happy is the man or woman who learns a trade and is not saddled with an unbearable debt.

Now off you go! Be excited! Be happy! Life is a precious gift, and you are still at the beginning of the journey.

Patricia Hall, the publisher's wife