Exploring Bird's Article, College is a Waste of Time and Money

High school graduation marks the start of young adults’ lives, a time where they are expected to decide what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Many young adults are pressured into attending college, whether they have determined their goal or not, but is it necessary? “The Case Against College,” an article written by Linda Lee, a mother who has questioned the former belief that college equals success, claims that “not everyone needs a higher education.” College, though beneficial to many, is not for everyone and should not determine an individual’s life.

After carefully reading both articles, I have to say that I agree more with Caroline Bird. Throughout her article Bird made exceedingly valid points as to why going to college isn’t always beneficial and I can relate to her points and opinions. I believe college isn’t for everyone and it surely it’s not always the key towards a happy and successful future, at least that’s how I see it. College is like one of those toy machines you spy at your local supermarket. It lures you in with all the cool prizes and colorful designs, but it’s only goal is to take your money and in the end you weren’t lucky enough to win that cool prize no matter how much money you keep putting in. That’s the same way college works, they only want your money and they could

Frist, I want to talk about the author of this article. Dale Stephens, who is an American entrepreneur, he is being famous for original 24 recipients of Thiel Fellowship. Peter Thiel gave he and other 19 entrepreneurs who are under 20 years old $100,000 to support their projects. He is the funder of Uncollege, which engage students to study by themselves out of school. Stephens wrote his first book name “Hacking Your Education” in 2013. The article “College is a waste of time” was published on CNN’s Social Commentary on June, 2, 2011. As previously mentioned, Stephens did not publish many books and articles. He came up with Uncollege, so when he writes this article is very bias

Typically, all students are told that college is their best option. Without college a well-paying job cannot be obtained. However this may not necessarily be true. Stephanie Owen, a senior research assistant for the Brooking’s Center on Children and Families, and Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies, argue that college is not the best option for every student. Instead students should review the information on various colleges to decide if college is beneficial for them. To support their claim, the authors use data on the return of investment for various colleges and suggestions for ways to make information more available for students. Combined, these tactics strengthen their argument so that it is rather effective.

People go through obstacles when they go to college and some do not. Some people believe it is a waste of money and others believe college guides students in the right direction for the future. In the book “They Say I Say with Readings,” Stephanie Owen, Isabel Sawhill, and Sanford J. Ungar explain why people should or should not go to college.

Does college really give graduates the tools and knowledge required to succeed? In the article “Where College Fails Us”, author Caroline Bird attempts to argue that college may not be worth as much as people are led to believe. Bird believes that with the rise in college graduates being well above the Department of Labor Statistics anticipated job needs, college is quickly becoming a waste of time. Moreover, several reasons listed depict colleges many shortcomings, including the stress it puts on students and the unrealistic expectations it gives them combined with huge financial burdens. The author believes that the successful college graduates would have been successful regardless of their education, and that the majority of students felt forced to attend. Finally, she states that before wasting your money on a college education the reader should reflect on her article and determine if there is still value in a college experience. Although Caroline Bird presents many persuading arguments against the college experience in her article, I believe her logic to be outdated and generalized, and her content lacking of discrediting information. I disagree that all college graduates are taking dead-end jobs, and universities have withdrawn from the social side of their educational experience.

Caroline Bird writes the statement in her 1975 article “The Case Against College (Bird 15-18)” that not every high school graduate is ready to attend college. It is 2010 and this article is still valid today. Some of the college students I have been around were not mature enough for obedience school let alone college. A few of the points she makes in the article are: College has never worked its magic for everyone. Does it make you a better person? Are colleges responsible for your children? Are my children living in a country club? I will use some of my own experiences as an example of college life, as well as examples from my daughter’s college experience, along with my nephews as well. All to find the answer to the big question: Are

Bird’s second point is that, contrary to popular belief, college is not the best monetary investment a young person can make. Bird explains this by comparing the money that would be spent on education versus money that is put in a bank for interest. The outcome shows investing money that would otherwise be spent on a college education would earn over half a million dollars more than the earnings of a male college graduate compared to a non-graduate. Bird also states that even if a graduate makes more money in their job than a non-graduate, there is no evidence that the higher income is due to their college education. She attributes financial success to luck rather than a college education. In this argument she mainly puts forth logical reasons why college is not for everyone. She shows actual dollar amounts that logically prove an education is not necessarily the most profitable investment.

In her article “College Is a Waste of Time and Money”, Caroline Bird attempts to pursued her readers that colleges are overflowing with students who don’t belong there. Her article first appeared in Psychology Today (May 1975). Since this material is outdated, I find it hard to believe that most of the responses by students and parents quoted in the article still hold true. The author has set out to pursue the readers that college is a bad and unnecessary choice for today’s youth. Yet the author holds a bachelors and a masters degree from two different universities. I would think that if she thought college was really a bad choice and a waste of time and money, she would not have gone back to get her masters degree.

Going to college and receiving a degree does not guarantee that a person is going to get a job right after they graduate. It is sometimes hard for some graduates to find a good job because there is so much competition with other graduates as well. Sometimes they may get a job and it could be in a totally different field of what they got their degree for. They must find a job though to pay off all the debt that an education has given them.

In Caroline Bird’s article, she argues that college is a wasteful investment with no bright future for those who do not wish to be there. In Bird’s article she points out the reasons in which students attend college. The reasons aren’t very complex, in fact, they are quite simple. As she quotes “They are there because it has become the thing to do or because college is a pleasant place to be; because it's the only way they can get parents or taxpayers to support them without working at a job they don’t like; because Mother wanted them to go, or some other reason entirely irrelevant to the course of studies for which college is supposedly organized” (Bird 217). Bird is explaining that students enroll in

She believed that the time and money students put into their college education did not meet their outcome expectations (220). Caroline Bird explained, If a high school graduate put the money he would use for college and put it into a saving account by age 64 the high school graduate would have almost double the amount of money that the college graduate due to compound interest. Bird argued that some high school graduates found jobs faster and were already earning more money than the average college graduate. Also, she advises adolescents that they are better off with keeping the money they would use for college than wasting it on college. She also wants to convince parents into be smart and let their children invest their money into something that is worth it instead of college. Birds third main point focused on how experience goes far beyond a college degree. Caroline Bird debates, “...not all apparent that what is actually learned in a professional education is necessary for success”(223). She spoke with people have college degree career and she said they claim that they hardly use the education they learned in college in their everyday jobs. Even Charles lawrence said,

The decision to obtain a higher education beyond high school is no longer a question of if, but when. This is the question that author Caroline Bird discusses in her article, “College is a Waste of Time and Money,” written in 1975. This text strives to convince students, parents, and advisors that obtaining a degree might not be in the best interest for those involved. Circling around the idea that college is a requirement and no longer an act of free will. Bird starts the article off strongly by building her credibility through her own personal research and other credible sources as well as appealing to readers through logical reasoning using numerous statistics, but fails to convince readers and discredits her ultimate goal through a disconnect in her use of analogies.

Fortunately, he did not have to pay back the loans. On his first job interview, he got the job and became an accountant inspector and as a result he got his loans waived, and this allowed him to have the money to buy a house. He is currently going to make approximately $90,000 to $100,000 this year and he has been working for less than a year. This demonstrates how college provides opportunities for people to take advantage of. The more education a person gains the more knowledgeable they become and knowledge is money. It gives person the opportunity to live a decent life where they do not have to worry about financial problems. This example proves that Bird’s idea that “college is the dumbest investment one can invest” is not always true. College offers more than just a degree, it provides a job with a decent salary. In Wilson’s experience, he found a job that pays him triple the amount of money that he pay for tuition.

Corrupt college professors are ruining students’ chances of getting a quality education. Students will typically get that hunch that a professor might be out the get them, but in reality those professors are actually out to get the whole student body. When these decrepit professors are in the classroom, they are not hip on modern teaching methods. This is detrimental to a student who just needs a quality education to keep up with the competitive working world that we have come to today. The article “Dear Students: Don’t Let College Unplug Your Future” is an effective argument to convince incoming freshmen at Brigham Young University and current BYU freshmen not to let the academic tradition get in the way of their learning by the use of allusions, colloquial diction, anecdotes and humor to establish a bond of trust between himself and the reader.