Choosing College: How to Make Better Learning Decisions Throughout Your Life

“By focusing on the different reasons why students choose to go to college, Michael Horn and Bob Moesta offer an entirely fresh approach to coping with the admissions process. Learners contemplating further education at every stage of life will gain important insights from this book. So will educators who wish to serve their students better.”
―Richard Levin, President Emeritus, Yale University

“Choosing College is a great guide for families and students to navigate the very complicated river of life at the college selection stage. Like a seasoned set of river pilots, Horn and Moesta guide you through the twists and turns and help keep you off the sand bars of stress. This book helps you to find your way as there is no the way. It is a great personal guide to a very complex process.”
―Michael M. Crow, President, Arizona State University

“Choosing College resonates with me as a parent of three college-aged daughters, an education executive, a former college instructor, and a public policy wonk. Horn and Moesta bring a new and timely framework to this vital decision-making process and families, like mine, as well as education leaders across many disciplines and sectors will find their insights applicable to the critically important life-long learning sector.”
―Jane Swift, Former Governor of Massachusetts

“This book is not a guide to college selection. It’s a thoughtful and clear pathway for all learners to make the best decisions about who they are, what they want to do and what schools, colleges and universities should provide to help them get there.”
―Bev Perdue, Former Governor of North Carolina

“Choosing College tackles one of the most complex and foundational decisions facing society today. Michael Horn and Bob Moesta go beyond dissecting the decision and formulating a return-on-investment. They frame a systemic approach to assist the reader in making a customized decision that is best for every individual. The break-through approach is the application of the popular Jobs to Be Done innovation methodology as a means of providing the reader with a pragmatic step-by-step model to make the most informed choices for their unique situation.”
―Brad D. Smith, Executive Chairman of the Board, Intuit, Inc.

Choosing College addresses the challenge that students and their families face in choosing the right path for their post-secondary education. The rankings, metrics and analytics designed to help make the decision process easier lack the information and context needed to make such a critical determination about whether and where to get an education.

Choosing College is firmly grounded in research and aims to help individuals determine their goals to make better-informed decisions about their education. This book offers illustrative examples from more than 200 stories of students choosing different post-secondary educational experiences, including traditional four-year universities, two-year community colleges, vocational training, and more. These examples reveal, in an accessible, inclusive way, the motivations for how and why people make the decisions to select one path over another.

This book helps students and their families understand not what job a student wants after college, but what “job” a student is hiring a school to do. By adopting the “Jobs to Be Done” theory, students can develop an understanding of what motivates them. Choosing College presents five different Jobs for which students hire postsecondary education. The book explores the set of experiences necessary to help students succeed in each Job, offers students guidance for framing the decision before them, and allows them to see their true set of desirable options.

Choosing College gives students, parents, counselors, and educational leaders an important guide for making better choices for their post-secondary education.