The most expensive asset most families ever purchase — and most parents are hoping for the best.

You'd Never Buy a House Without Insurance. So Why Are You Sending Your Student to College Without Insurance?

You insured the car before they ever drove it off the lot.

You insured the house before you unpacked a single box.

You probably have life insurance, dental insurance, maybe even insurance on your phone. Because that's what you do when something matters. When losing it  or watching it fall apart  would cost more than you're willing to pay.

College tuition at a four-year university averages $30,000–$50,000 per year. Some families are paying more. That's $120,000 to $200,000 over four years - not counting room, board, and the ttimes they'll ask you to Venmo them at 11pm on a Thursday.

And most families send their student off with a laptop, a shower caddy, and a hope that high school prepared them.

It didn't.

Not because your student isn't smart. Not because you didn't raise them right. But because high school (however good it was) doesn't teach students how to manage unstructured time. It doesn't teach them how to read a syllabus and build a semester plan. It doesn't teach them what to do when they're behind and overwhelmed and too embarrassed to ask for help.

College requires a completely different set of skills than anything they've been asked to do before.

And most students don't find that out until October.... when the midterm grades come back and you both look at each other wondering what happened.

The thing about insurance is this:

You don't buy it because you think something will go wrong.

You buy it because something might .......and the cost of being wrong is too high.

That's the shift I want to invite you to make this summer.

Not panic. Not catastrophizing. Not assuming your student is going to fail.

Just an honest question: Do I actually understand what my student is walking into? And do I have anything in place if it doesn't go the way we're expecting?

Because right now, most parents are operating on two things: hope, and the assumption that the skills that got their student here will carry them through what comes next.

Hope is not a strategy. And high school skills are not college skills.

What I've watched happen — over and over:

A student arrives in August. Smart, motivated, ready. Maybe even excited. Gets through the first few weeks on adrenaline and the novelty of being somewhere new.

Then the workload stacks. The first exam hits. The assignment they thought was optional wasn't. The professor doesn't remind them. No one does.

And by October, the student who was going to "figure it out" is now behind in two classes, avoiding their email, and calling home less than they used to.

The parents? They're seeing only the surface - shorter calls, vague answers, a student who seems distant or short-tempered. They don't know if they should push or give space. They don't know if this is normal adjustment or something that needs intervention. They don't want to smother. They don't want to ignore it either.

That's the gap I work in.

Not managing the student from afar. Not hovering. But understanding what you're actually looking at and knowing what helps, and what quietly makes it worse.

This summer, I'm writing about exactly that.

Every week between now and August, this blog is going to help you understand what college really asks of a student, what parents can actually do from the sidelines, and how to give your student the best possible shot at a semester that goes the way you're all hoping it will.

We're starting at the beginning: what it actually costs when students go in without the right skills. What you might be misreading when you look at your student's behavior. And what the families who come through the other side of a rough semester all have in common.

If your student is heading to college this fall for the first time or returning, this series is for you.

If you want to get ahead of the reading:

I just released the College Parent Reality Check — the guide I've been wanting to write for years.

It's a 18-page PDF decoder and a private three-episode podcast series. It explains what you're actually looking at when your student goes quiet, procrastinates, avoids, or pushes back. And three podcast episodes that walk you through how to use that understanding to show up differently and in a way that actually helps.

This isn't a parenting manual. It's a behavior decoder. Written by someone who has spent years watching students fail and succeed ..... and  watching their parents inadvertently help and (unfortunately) inadvertently make things harder.

It's $37. Instant access. No subscription.

[Get the College Parent Reality Check →]

The guide nobody handed you when they left for college.

Or when they're getting ready to leave. Or right now, wherever you are in this.

Next week: What parents get wrong about motivation — and the one thing they almost always blame first that almost never is the real problem.