NEW INC. MAGAZINE COLUMN FROM HOWARD TULLMAN

 College Costs More Than Ever. Too Many Graduates Still Arrive at Work Missing the Basics

Employers across the country report that they’re spending far too much time teaching their newest employees basic skills because their colleges didn’t.

EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN

Aug 31, 2026

As millions of incoming freshmen begin their college experiences, I was struck by how little confidence I—and likely most of their parents—have in the likelihood that their very costly four-year investment in their children’s further education will pay off down the road, in terms of better preparation for their post-college employment prospects and life in general. The only relief for many of these folks (which is a mixed blessing at best) is that their kids have less and less chance of getting into the “name” schools these days. That may not be all that bad a piece of news, because regardless of what’s being taught at those exotic places, the bottom line is that many of the kids aren’t learning the critical things they need.

Employers across the country report that they’re spending far too much time teaching their newest employees how to read, write, spell and otherwise communicate because their colleges didn’t. This is not to automatically say that there’s no clear benefit for millions of students to slogging through four years of the maturation process—it’s clearly supposed to be where you start to develop your people skills and work ethic, along with patience and perseverance. But most of those skills and qualities aren’t learned in the classroom anyway. And, just to be blunt, any thought that AI tools will address and resolve these newbie deficiencies is a foolish idea that has already been shown to be a growing problem rather than any kind of efficient supplement or solution to their astonishing lack of preparation.

In addition, these practical and operational problems are actually dwarfed by the attitudinal deficiencies which accompany these new arrivals after four years of browbeating, lecturing, and indoctrination by professors who think they’re exempt from and far above the daily fray of making a living.

By and large, the insulated and isolated professors who populate too many tenured positions in many of our most expensive and sought after universities regard themselves as too good to bother teaching the basic skill sets and tools that their students will actually need to succeed in the future. Note that I no longer say or believe that these are the “best” schools because—reputation value, branding, and networking connections aside—they simply aren’t getting the job of educating and equipping our next generation of scholars, researchers and leaders done. And the most expensive and elitist of them are among the worst. In addition, for millions of young Americans, two-year vocational schools offer a better, more practical and cost-effective, and quicker path into the real world than the four expensive years at most colleges.

But I’m seeing a glimmer of hope that some schools, some parents and some employers are all starting to take a few steps back and beginning to reemphasize such formerly verboten concepts as reliance on standardized test scores for admittance, resurrecting the traditional idea that math is objective and that there are right and wrong answers that are not subject to debate, and requiring students to stand and present their work to their peers. Smart parents can and need to take an active role in teaching their kids the most basic and important ideas all along the way as to what actually matters.

And, here again, the real bottom line and old-fashioned considerations that we need to teach our kids if the schools are dropping the ball are what I have forever called The Perspiration Principles. Passion (Care More than Others Think is Wise); Preparation (Study More than Others Think is Smart); Perspiration (Work Harder than Others Think is Possible); Perseverance (Stay in the Game When Others Give Up) and Principles (Stick to Your Values and Beliefs When Others Start to Wobble).