My daughter isn’t sure about university—and honestly, that made me rethink everything
The conversation started over dinner, the way most uncomfortable ones do in our house. My seventeen-year-old was pushing green beans around her plate, clearly building up to something. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t dramatic. She just said, “I don’t think I want to go to university.”
I kept my face neutral, but my stomach dropped. For years, the path had seemed so clear. Good grades, a good university, a good degree, a good job. It was the script I’d followed, the script my parents had followed, and I’d never questioned it.
But then she said something that made me pause. “Like, I get that you loved it,” she said. “But I don’t know if I want to spend four years and a bunch of money to feel like I’m still in school.”
At that moment, I realized I’d never actually explained to her why university meant so much to me. I’d just passed it down as an assumption, like chin-length haircuts or greeting cards at Christmas.
I went to a large state school in the Midwest. It wasn’t prestigious, but it was mine. I remember the smell of the library on humid September afternoons, the way the stairwells echoed. I remember sitting in a window seat in the sociology building, watching leaves fall, feeling profoundly lonely during my first month and then, gradually, feeling less lonely as I found my people. University taught me how to think, sure, but more importantly, it taught me how to live away from home. I learned to manage a bank account, navigate a hangover, write a 10-page paper at 3 a.m., and still show up to a part-time job at a diner the next morning.
I wanted that for her. But I had to ask myself: did she need it?
Over the next few weeks, we had a lot of conversations. Not lectures—actual conversations, usually in the car or while washing dishes. She told me her fears. That she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to study. That the idea of debt made her feel sick. That she felt pressure from all sides to have a plan and she didn’t have one yet. And here’s the part that surprised me: she didn’t lack ambition, she just didn’t see university as the only way to find it.
I started telling her about some of the kids I’ve seen come through over the years. I’m not a teacher, but I’ve volunteered as a mentor at a local high school for a while, and I’ve watched a lot of students make this decision. Some went to university, thrived, and found their calling. Some went and dropped out after a year, having spent a lot of money to learn they hated what they’d signed up for—which is an expensive but real lesson. Some skipped university entirely. They went to trade school, did an apprenticeship, started small businesses, or just worked and traveled for a while. A few of them are doing better financially than kids with degrees.
The truth I had to face was that my generation quietly inflated a lot of things about university. We said it was about learning, but it was often about credientials. We said it builds character, but it also builds debt. And while I genuinely loved my university days, I also graduated with $28,000 in student loans and no clear idea how to pay them back. It worked out, but not because I’d made a smart plan—because I got lucky with a job.
What helped us break through the tension was reframing the question. Instead of asking “Should you go to university?” we started asking “What is university for you, right now?” That shifted everything.
For my daughter, that question opened up space. She admitted she wasn’t ready. Not academically—she’s bright. But emotionally. She wanted to work, to travel, to figure out what her baseline looked like before she added classes and deadlines on top of it. That felt scary to hear, but honestly, it also made sense. I remember being 18 and choosing a degree for no better reason than it sounded respectable and my parents approved. She was already doing more thinking than I did at her age.
So here’s what we’ve settled on for now. She’s going to take a gap year. She’ll live at home, work at a small café, and pay a modest amount of rent to us. That rent money will go into a savings account she doesn’t touch. She’s also going to take one community college course next spring, just to test the waters of academic work without the pressure of a full load. It costs a few hundred dollars, not thousands. If she loves it, great. If she hates it, we’ve learned something useful.
There are practical logistics, of course. She’ll need to line up health insurance through a part-time gig or a state plan. We’re helping her research that. We’re also being clear about the revolving door problem. Gap years only work when they have a loose structure. We don’t want her to drift into two or three years of just picking up shifts and streaming shows. So the community college class is part of it. So is a monthly check-in where we talk about money and goals and whether the plan still feels right.
What I’m still working through—and I’ll be honest, this part isn’t resolved—is the grief of letting go of my own expected timeline. I see my friends posting Facebook photos of their kids dorm rooms and I feel a flicker of something. Not jealousy exactly, but a sense that we’re off-script. That our path looks less like a shiny brochure and more like a rough draft.
But then I watch my daughter come home from a long shift, tired but energized, recounting how she handled a difficult customer or organized the fridge order. She’s learning things I never learned in a lecture hall. Patience. The value of a dollar. How to work with people who have very different lives than hers. That’s real education too, just with a different setting.
What do I think about university? I think it’s excellent. For some. At some times. In some forms. It’s not a universal good, and I’m starting to think that insisting it is does more harm than good.
We haven’t closed the book on university. She might go in two years, or five, or never. We’re learning to hold the question rather than rushing to an answer. She’s teaching me that the path doesn’t have to be straight to be worth walking. And some nights, sitting across the kitchen table from her, I think she’s already where she needs to be.
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