Joie’s Newsletter #11
The Founding Fathers Were Some of Our Best Teachers
Long before I started College Prep 360, I was a Teaching Fellow at Harvard for a course on the history of American higher education. As we celebrated our nation's 250th birthday this month, I found myself thinking about those lessons again. I loved teaching that class because it challenged students to think about colleges differently. We tend to think of universities as places where people earn degrees, but the people who founded many of our country's greatest institutions believed they had a much bigger purpose.
Like most of us, I learned about Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, and Adams as presidents, generals, inventors, statesmen, and revolutionaries. What I didn't fully appreciate until I began studying the history of higher education was how deeply committed they were to education itself. Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and considered it one of only three accomplishments worthy of appearing on his tombstone. Franklin founded what became the University of Pennsylvania because he believed students should be educated not only in the classics but also in the practical knowledge that would allow them to improve society. Washington spent years advocating for a national university because he believed young people from different states should learn together to advance national unity. Adams argued that democracy could survive only if its citizens were educated enough to govern themselves.
The more I learned, the more I realized they were all trying to answer the same question. Once you've built a country, how do you prepare the next generation to maintain it? Their answer was education. Because education produces citizens. The founders believed that every generation had a responsibility to pass along not just knowledge, but values, curiosity, and a sense of responsibility for the world around them.
I think about that more than ever these days. During COVID, my family started a community fridge in our neighborhood. It was never a grand plan. We saw a need, and we tried to do something about it with and for our neighbors. A few months ago, my son started a club at his school called Students Against Hunger. I had nothing to do with it. He simply saw something that mattered and carried it forward in his own way.
That, to me, is what education at its best has always been. Young people watch what we value, what we build, what we choose to spend our time on, and eventually they begin building things of their own.
That is also why our philosophy at College Prep 360 has never been about helping students look impressive. We want them to find work that genuinely matters to them, to become deeply invested in ideas and communities they care about, and to build something real. Those are the students who stand out in admissions, but more importantly, they are the young people who leave college prepared to make a meaningful contribution wherever life takes them.
As we celebrate America's 250th birthday, I find myself thinking about inheritance. Even with all its flaws, the Founding Fathers gave us a remarkable country. They also left us a revolutionary vision of education that reminds us our job is not simply to help young people find careers, but to help them become citizens who leave things better than they found them. Just like the Founders did.
Happy 250th, America!
Education expert, founder, author of “B+ Grades, A+ College Application.”
