Post Secondary Education : An Example Of Dedication, Work Ethic, And Self Motivation For A Better Life Essay

Going to a four-year university or college is not always the best choice for many students. This is due to what many of these colleges and universities offer their students that come from a lower socioeconomic background. This essay will aim to demonstrate the issues that students may face when they pursue a postsecondary education.

“Who Gets to Graduate’ by Paul Tough, publish May, 2015 in the New York Times discusses. The story of a young girl’s mindset on college. It begins with her starting in college and first failure on a test. It highlighted the doubts she had in her abilities. This opening introduces the article’s man discussion, which involves low income students who want to earn a four year degree but experience “troubles” along the way. It then discusses statistics that show dropout rates are highest with low-income students. The author included ability versus economics status.

Higher education in America is facing many challenges, i.e., low retention, low graduation rates and less funding. Postsecondary institutions are scrambling to remain a competitive entity within society. In order to do so, students must remain in school (Talbert, 2012). The Office of the White House states (2014), educational attainment is critical to our county’s economic success. In essence, the work force is creating more jobs requiring more education and a higher level of skill than was previously achieved. Individuals with only a high school diploma will not make into the middle class sector because of

Andrew Simmons published his article for The Atlantic, “The Danger of Telling Poor Kids that College is the Key to Social Mobility” on January 16, 2014, which raises his concerns that higher education is only being promoted as an opportunity to increase their economic status, when it should be an opportunity to experience an education (Simmons). Through the use of students such as Isabella, Simmons disagrees with the way students now look at higher education and blames the educators through the students’ lives for this view. Instead, Simmons views education as an intellectual opportunity rather than a way to elevate ones economic class which is all people see when they see “higher education.” He believes that education, ambition and work ethic is how you have a satisfying life, not with how much you make. He makes the point that when economics becomes the main goal of education it’s all children begin to think about and they might not pursue something that they are truly passionate about or what they want to learn about, which then does not create an intellectually awakening experience (Simmons).

In society today, a college education is often seen as a “the next step” in a young adult’s life. Whether they actually know what they would like to earn a degree in, they feel the need to continue their education as almost everyone around them is pursuing post-secondary education of some sort. It is often argued that a college education is not necessary to get ahead because of the manufacture based workforce that is up and coming in America, however, there are many benefits to having a post-secondary education such as a higher rate of pay and more job opportunities.

Recently there has been a lot of debate about the importance of college education. Students are asking if it’s worth the debt to attend a four year university or community college. Some are thinking what are the benefits of a degree is in the workforce. With college tuition increasing and state fundings lowering, low income students are struggling to attain a higher education. College institutions should have a role to provide students higher education and equal opportunity to students to increase social mobility yet intergenerational reproduction of privilege has produced inequality in education.

With the workforce becoming more competitive in today’s economy, the educational requirements have increased. By the year 2020, approximately 65% of all jobs in the United States will require a postsecondary education and/or further training proceeding high school education (“Recovery”). One thing that is not increasing is the rate of college enrollment of students from the Detroit Public Schools or college enrollment in general. There are many factors that contribute to this problem, just as there are also many solutions that may help assuage it. The main reason why students from Detroit Public Schools are not enrolling in postsecondary education institutions has to do with their financial situation.

With the growing importance of higher education, more people than ever are attending college. According to a middle-class parent, “[Higher education] seen as a means of developing a career and getting secure employment.” (30, Higher Education, social class and social mobility) Moreover, “parents believe that their children need a university education to get on in life… over the past decades (parents) fearful that without a degree their children will be in danger of downward social mobility. (32, Higher

Imagine a brilliant high school child named Michael who has a high GPA and is enrolled in the honors and AP curriculum; he precipitates in multitudes of extracurricular activities including sports and clubs. He gets accepted to many schools and received many scholarships. However, even with financial aid, he and his family are economically deprived and therefore incapable in funding a college education. This scenario is not an imagination but a common event in modern day America. Fifty percent of eighteen to twenty-five year old adults who did not attend a higher education institution experienced a similar situation (Why). These people belong in a university, an establishment whose nature is to judge base on the intelligence not on the

In “The Great Debate: Is College Still Worth It?” author Ricardo Azziz endorses post-secondary education by stating its economic advantage in today’s society. The author begins his article by introducing a survey done by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which shows that the majority of college graduates believe college education is worth its cost. Not only are people convinced of the value of a college education, adults with a degree of some sort (bachelor’s degree or associate degree) tend to earn more than those without one. But also, post-secondary education gives people a better chance at achieving the “American Dream” through diligence and hard work. Azziz states that “college graduates were 5.3 times more likely to leave the bottom quintile than non-college graduates”. In addition, in times of an economic downturn, individuals with a college degree are often able to better cope with the difficulty than those without. However, amidst the benefits of college, Azziz does not forget to address the reality that attending college is still, without a question, an expensive endeavor.

In “The Dangers of Telling Poor Kids That College Is the Key to Social Mobility”, Andrew Simmons, a high school teacher who teaches in a poor area of Los Angeles, argues that higher education’s educational opportunities should be the main promotion for students to attend college. The author’s purpose is to inform and persuade his readers to accept his view on what he sees as a problem of the education system. According to Simmons, teachers focus on the economic advantages that higher education could bring instead of the actual education these institutions offer. Because of this promotion, students in poorer areas focus on their potential wealth instead of their future education while students in wealthier areas focus on their future careers

Education is today more critical than ever. College has become virtually a precondition for upward mobility. Men with only a high school diploma earn about a fifth less than they did 35 years ago. The gap between the earnings of students with a college degree and those without one is bigger than ever.

The Danger of Telling Poor Kids that College is the Key to Social Mobility While reading the text "The Danger of Telling Poor Kids that College is the Key to Social Mobility" it helps the reader to identify many issues on why students want to attend college. Andrew Simmons stated that “Higher education should be promoted to all students as an opportunity to experience an intellectual awakening, not just increase their earning power which I am in favor of. College promotion should be used to motivate students in a critical thinking way instead of a financial advantage. The author’s purpose was to identify the separation between how college can be an educational opportunity instead of a financial opportunity to grow from poverty. The main idea

On average 86% of Americans believe that college was ultimately a “good investment” and that it set the bar for their annual earnings. Those adults who graduated from a four-year school thought that they earned an annual wage of $20,000 more than the wage of an individual who didn’t graduate from such a facility. This estimation was precisely accurate with the actual statistical findings according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (“Is College Worth It?”) Post-secondary education offers a greater financial status in the lives of those who dare to gamble with the odds and invest their time and effort into a reward of a lifetime. This educational wealth offers a gateway into a life that cannot be conjured up by any high school graduate but by a collegiate alumnus, a life that is ultimately happier and stress-free. While other high school graduates often hide and run in the face of this decision the few that stay will be rewarded a life of

The literature thus firmly supports the thesis that socio-economic status is directly correlated with academic success, due to the superior financial and social capital resources available to the middle-class student. Furthermore, the interdependence between multiple factors means that the cumulative impact of risk factors may be greater than the simple sum of separate factors (Sparks, 1999:10)