Personal Statement: If I Went To College

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.

Society today is often very pressuring towards young adults when it comes to attending college. Maybe it’s because it is the most appropriate idea for people. College provides the average human with a higher satisfaction of life due to the experience and the positives outcomes than that of someone who chooses not to go to college. Although college results in the possibility of debt afterwards, it is still worth the journey.

In their essay “Should Everyone Go to college,” a part of the book They Say I Say, Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill explore the advantages and disadvantages of college and examine the value of college for all individuals. Owen and Sawhills’ purpose is to put an end to the belief that a four-year degree is necessary to be successful. They adopt an informative tone to influence readers to open their minds to a new belief that college is still important but not mandatory for every student. Owen and Sawhill argue that the proposition that college is a requirement to be economically successful has failed to recognize that not everyone is created equally by reminding readers that many factors play into whether college is the right option for someone.

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

This is a reflective essay concerning my READ 3423.01 with Dr. Reid in the fall of 2016. As I wrap up my first semester at Texas Women’s University I am awed and thankful. I am the first person in my family to attend University. Some find this surprising because I do come from a family that has done well professionally, but that was due to grit and personalities. The fact is, I was never even spoken to about attending college while I was growing up. I believe this is because no one before me had this experience to share or encourage. The truth is I tried my hardest to not be at school from middle school on, I just wasn’t engaged in the process. Of course, there were a few teachers I connected with, like the business and history teachers, but I hated the rules and structure of the environment. I amazedly graduated with my high school class, as my friends went away to Universities I took some classes at the community college. What I found was that when I got to pick my classes I flourished. Even the classes that others said were too hard to take during summer quarter, I excelled in those as well. As life unfolded I got married, moved out of state and had two daughters. When it was time for my daughters to attend school I was pretty apprehensive about the idea of it. I opened a preschool in a mother-in-law apartment we had on our property and decided they could learn there in a small community. That preschool led to homeschooling, and large educational co-ops. I lived in a

Society has put so much emphasis on attending college after high school, making it a social norm. During the last two years of high school guidance consolers, teachers, parents and their children begin meeting and have discussions on whats next after high school. Many parents such as the ones in the study conducted by Holmstrom, Lynda Lytle plan to send their children to college after high school. One parent stated “ what kind of economic future do they have if they are not educated.” Participating parents were from different socioeconomic backgrounds, and those who’ve attending college and some that did not were in agreement that the benefits were everlasting. When asked what they received from attending college parents gave responses such as “ I was well served, it was a tremendously exciting place, along with gaining new prospective on the world, boosting self confidences and broadening and opening their minds. Other parents expressed the ability to obtain a job they were about to provide for their families along with gaining personal benefits like health care. The parents in this study were faced with the truths of having to pay for their children’s higher education and overall they were willing to go the extra mile so their children were able to go to college and not be struggling to make ends meet in the years

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.

Due to the continuing increase of living it’s nearly impossible to be able to live alone. Since the demand of a higher education for better paying jobs is at an all time high trying to juggle a full-time job and returning to college is more than difficult at times. Frank, a full-time employee decided that he’d better himself by returning to college. Never considering that times have changed, he still continued to work and go to school. He stretched himself to the max; he worked late hours and then stayed up doing homework until the early morning only to have to get up and return to class to repeat the long days over. Several weeks passed, he realized that he was never going to be able to get ahead to matter how hard to tried. He was very aware that if he stopped taking classes his chances of being something in the world were even slimmer than if he continued and somehow managed to do both. Frank decided that no matter how tough these next few months were going to be he wasn’t going to let it stop him from meeting his goals.

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 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

As young adults graduate from high school, they wonder whether they should pursue a higher education or not. The debate on the cost of college and its worth has been a highly discussed topic for decades. Most kids most likely won’t attend college because they claim it’s too expensive and it’s not worth the cost. But college is more than just a building with an expensive price tag that people attend, it’s an experience, it’s a segue to personal and financial prosperity.

Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many

“Every year, over 1.2 million students drop out of high school in the United States alone. That's a student every 26 seconds – or 7,000 a day. 25% of high school freshmen fail to graduate from high school on time.” But this year, as I talked to my fellow seniors about their future plans, I never once heard, “I’m not going to college.”

Title (Intro) Nearly every day goes by without a mention of thought about college. With both parents coming from a family that made income for only necessities to survive, they both were taught to cherish a gift that nobody could take away: Education. Despite this, some of their siblings would discreetly skip out in schooling due to inability to take the stress of school which lead to choices like skipping college. While skipping college may seem like the best option for some, college can be a broadening opportunity in making an investment for the future.

For many, after graduating high school the next big step is college. I never asked myself why or if I even wanted to. Yet, since I was not yet ready to join the work force, and didn’t want to disappoint my parents, I simply followed the path that I was supposed to take. For a while I had no direction, but through the loss of my high school English teacher and my dream of making my family proud, I discovered that college was the place I wanted and needed to be.

Attending college or a university to continue an education after high school, determines what your future will look like depending on how successful you become. Financial Aid, scholarships and the support from those surrounding you are all importants things that raise the possibility of attending school after high school. While some are fortunate enough to afford a full education after graduating, other aren’t so lucky. According to an article written by Alia Wong on January 11, 2016, “the latest national data demonstrates how more students are getting their high-school diplomas more than ever before. But that doesn’t mean students are going to college. Recently released numbers out of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center suggests that college-enrollment rates have actually decreased”. Attending college enhances the chance of employment for an individual while offering skills and new opportunities for future usage. However, receiving such education has a cost along with living and school supply expenses that not all students can afford. Over the decades, statistics have shown that the cost of higher education is only rising, not only does this make it make it much more challenging for many, but it leads to an unstable future. For this reason, college should be free for everyone and it shouldn’t prevent students from receiving a higher education.