Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.
College is often framed as the best time of your life. The phrase is repeated so frequently that it has begun to feel like an expectation, one that suggests that everything after graduation is destined to be a lesser version of what came before.
This narrative is not only misleading — it is limiting.
College can be a meaningful and formative chapter in one’s life. For many students, it offers independence, community and the first real sense of autonomy. It can be exciting, grounding and at times, joyful. But it is not the peak of a meaningful life, nor should it be treated as such.
Life does not derive its value from youth alone, and fulfillment does not suddenly expire at graduation. Suggesting otherwise places an artificial ceiling on what adulthood can offer; a ceiling many people internalize long before they have the chance to challenge it.
The insistence that college represents a high point in life creates unnecessary pressures. Students are told, implicitly and explicitly, that these years must be maximized, cherished and remembered as unparalleled. When that expectation goes unmet due to financial stress, academic burnout, mental health struggles, social isolation or personal hardship, the result is often guilt rather than understanding. A difficult college experience becomes framed as a failure, rather than what it often is: a singular challenging chapter in a much longer, still-unfolding story.
Even for those who loved college, elevating the experience above all else can still be restrictive. Nostalgia becomes a benchmark, and adulthood is measured against a past that can no longer exist in the same way. The constant refrain of wishing to “go back” discourages forward motion. It suggests that growth, reinvention and joy are harder to come by once youth falls away, and that the most meaningful experiences are already behind us.
This mindset also carries broader implications beyond individual experience — it reinforces the idea that life’s most valuable moments belong to the young, subtly devaluing the lives of older adults. Aging is framed as decline rather than expansion. Opportunity is treated as something that narrows with time instead of something that changes shape. In doing so, this narrative limits not only students’ expectations for their future but society’s understanding of what a full, worthwhile life looks like, no matter what age.
College should matter, but it should not define the limits of possibility. Ideally, it is a foundation, not a finish line. The goal should not be to preserve college as a personal peak, but to build a life that continues to grow beyond it. Careers evolve. Relationships deepen. Passions shift. Purpose becomes clearer, then changes again. These are not lesser experiences simply because they happen later in life. They are different, often richer, and earned through time.
None of this is possible if the past is treated as the standard against which everything else must fall short. When college is positioned as the best it will ever get, adulthood is approached with resignation instead of curiosity. That is a loss we rarely talk about, but many feel.
If college was a great experience for someone, that should be an invitation not to longingly live in the past, but to build on it. If college was a difficult experience, that should not diminish the value of what lies ahead. Either way, life is not something to look back at with yearning, but instead should be something to look forward toward to with intention.
College can be important without being definitive. It should be meaningful without being unmatched. Life is not meant to be consolidated to four years; it is meant to expand far beyond them.
Reach Maci Lesh at letters@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
