Alyssa Lanz poses for a snapshot in Egypt while studying at the American University in Cairo, taking classes in Arabic and political science, and working with New Women's Foundation, a research center in Cairo focusing on women's rights. (Photo: mayafrost.com)

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Everybody knows the straight and narrow, up-and-out formula for American success: good grades, good scores, good college, big debt … good luck.

My guests today, Maya and Tom Frost, say forget it. There’s a better way, they say. And the path leads abroad — early.

Stay home studying for SATs and taking on college debt, and you’re guaranteed nothing in this topsy-turvy economy. Go abroad — as early as high school, especially for college, they say — and you’ll find low tuitions, big adventures, and the future.

This hour, On Point: A new American way in the world. Going global, right from the start.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Maya Frost joins us in our studio. She’s the author of “The New Global Student: Skip the SAT, Save Thousands on Tuition and Get a Truly International Education.”

At Frost’s website, you can read about the students (such as Alyssa Lanz, seen in the photo above) who are featured in the book.

Also joining us in our studio is Tom Frost, husband of Maya and father of their four daughters.

The waiting list cases are wrapping up now. The acceptance and rejection letters are up on the fridge or in the trash. But the college admissions season of 2008 is one for the record books.

At 3.3 million, the high school class that just scrambled through admission hoops is the nation’s largest since 1977 — the “echo-boom” they call it.

These applicants faced fearsome competition from each other, and a head-spinning new set of challenges at the college starting line.

This hour, On Point: college admissions ‘08, and what they tell us about where this country’s headed.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor covering education.

Chris Munoz, Vice President for Enrollment at Rice University, he’s worked as the chief admissions officer for Case Western Reserve, University of Dayton, and California Lutheran University.

Donna Virklan, College Counselor at Niles North High School in Skokie, Illinois.

Nancy St. Clair, Director of Guidance at Weston High School in Weston, Connecticut.

After World War II, some 8 million veterans came home and went to college on the GI Bill, helping create the American middle class. Now, the latest generation of vets — battle-tried in Iraq and Afghanistan — is coming home, and many are going to college.

They’ve got less help from Uncle Sam, but they are hitting campuses across the country, confronting term papers, parties, campus politics, and culture shock.

This hour, On Point: we hear from three Iraq vets, now all undergrads, about reentering civilian life on campus.

-Sheilah Kast

Guests:

Matt Stiner, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He’s now a senior at Oklahoma State University at Tulsa.

Talya Havice, an active duty Marine who served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Far East. She is now a sophomore at Harvard University.

David Hassan, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. He is now in his first year at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Twenty years ago, Chicago’s Allan Bloom made a bestselling splash with his book “The Closing of the American Mind,” arguing that American universities had walked away from the Western classics and dumbed down American higher education.

Now, former Yale Law School dean Anthony Kronman arrives to say that door is nearly shut. In his new book, “Education’s End,” Kronman says bad priorities, raging careerism, and political correctness have cut college kids off from learning the meaning of life.

This hour, On Point: Anthony Kronman asks, “What is college for?”

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Anthony T. Kronman, Yale law professor and author of “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life.”

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

Robert Oden, president of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.