Readers React: 18-year-olds don’t have the brains for adulthood

To the editor: Michele Willens bemoans a federal law preventing colleges from disclosing students’ records to their parents. I don’t understand why institutions of higher learning treat 18 year olds as adults. (“College kids have too much privacy,” Op-Ed, Sept. 8)

University biology, medical and science departments should be aware of the most recent neuroscience findings that show that the prefrontal cortex of the human brain, which determines executive decision making, doesn’t come fully online until age 25. Their psychology departments should be aware (as this has long been known) that several debilitating mental illnesses like schizophrenia tend to manifest in college-aged people.

Just reading the newspapers (with reports of college-aged killers in Isla Vista, Calif., Colorado and elsewhere) should make all administrators aware that parental notification at the first sign of a student acting strangely or doing poorly would be a helpful intervention to prevent unthinkable consequences.

Wendy Dytman, Los Angeles

The writer is a marriage and family therapist.

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To the editor: On the day of our 18th birthday, we become legal adults who are allowed to vote, marry and perform many other functions without the consent of our parents. Yet the notion that a college student is allowed to have exclusive access to his or her grades and other records is seen by many people as irrational.

Adulthood brings new freedom and responsibilities that, whether someone is a college student or not, we must learn through experience how to best assess and react. How can growth and maturity to arise without opportunities like these?

Removing students’ right to having exclusivity to their grades is to take away an essential component of self-growth, and this should not be taken lightly.

Nina Rodriguez, Los Angeles

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