Min Jin Lee asks, is college still a reliable investment?

How can parents ensure a future of financial stability for their children? For many, higher education has always seemed like the answer, but is that still true today? Host Reema Khrais talks to author Min Jin Lee about her new novel, “American Hagwon.” The book chronicles the newly middle-class Koh family, whose lives are upended by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the different ways they show up for one another as they pursue higher education and economic security.

In preparation for writing this novel, Lee conducted hundreds of interviews with Koreans around the world, and what she found surprised her: “The most important thing to Koreans is not religion, it’s not money, it’s not sex, it’s not love, it’s not even family. The one thing that people are wrestling with is this topic of education.”

A few takeaways from this episode:

• Western individualism vs. familial collectivism. Lee thinks that the security a family provides goes hand-in-hand with the sacrifices it can ask of us: “I don’t think you can have security without sacrifice. I think it’s an immature way of looking at life.” The Koh family doesn’t always have money, but there is a deep sense that they will always take care of one another, and sometimes they need to put their own wants on the back burner to support one another.

• Class as a factor in planning for higher education. As a teacher at Amherst College, Lee has seen firsthand the shortcomings of American higher education. “What I think is sort of unfair about college, is that very few people are looking at your education holistically and saying, what is this all about?” Lee says. “And also, how much wiggle room do you have in terms of financial responsibility and the path you choose?”

• Confusing the symbols of a good life with a good life itself. Lee gives the example of someone spotted carrying designer handbag: you might assume that signifies wealth and success, but that might not be the case. “Is that person still paying for it with a credit card? Is that bag somebody else’s sister’s?” Lee ask. “These are just symbols. It's not necessarily about the content of your character or what's going on in your mind.”

• A family is not a business, and its success cannot be measured in dollars and cents. In writing this novel, Lee wanted to reassure the nervous parents of college-bound children that their parenting is enough. “A family can’t have a poster child,” she says. “You can’t be a trophy wife or a trophy husband because you’re just a person who wants to be loved no matter what.”

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