Milo Goes to College is the debut studio album by the American punk rock band Descendents, released on September 4, 1982 through New Alliance Records. Its title referred to singer Milo Aukerman's decision to leave the band to attend college, and its cover illustration introduced a caricature of him that would go on to become the band's mascot. Milo Goes To College was Descendents' last record (up until 2021's 9th & Walnut) with founding guitarist Frank Navetta, who quit the band during the hiatus that followed its release. The album's mix of fast and aggressive hardcore punk with melody and semi-ironic love songs led to it being considered one of the most significant albums of the early 1980s southern California hardcore movement. In the decades since its release it has received positive reviews and been counted among the most noteworthy punk albums by several publications. Milo Goes to College has been cited as influential and a favorite by several notable artists and musicians. It is considered by many to have kickstarted the pop-punk genre. Writing The Descendents' 1981 Fat EP had established the band's presence in the southern California hardcore punk movement with its short, fast, aggressive songs. While still short and fast, the songs the band wrote for their first full-length album were also melodic, described by singer Milo Aukerman as melodic hardcore. "I think with those songs we were expanding beyond the kind of fast-fast-fast-fast thing", he later recalled. "There are some of the similar coffee-driven songs, but I know that melodically there was actually an attempt at singing and making more pop-flavored music. Obviously we all really loved that, growing up with The Beatles and stuff." Drummer Bill Stevenson reflected that "By the time we recorded Milo Goes to College the pendulum swung somewhere maybe in the middle. There's a lot of melodic and pop elements to it, but it also has that [sense of] bitter resentment." All four band members made songwriting contributions to the album. Stevenson had written the lead track, "Myage", several years earlier using a bass guitar he had found discarded in a trash bin. His song "Bikeage" is about "a group of girls who were sort of turning into sluts", while "Jean Is Dead" deals with "a girl who was not stable, but I had really not known." Fishing was a favorite hobby of Stevenson's; "Catalina" describes a fishing trip to Santa