School Is Not Only A Decision, It 's The Start Of A Deep Rooted Voyage

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.

Education means something different for everyone. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (33). The truth to this is that education affects us in every aspect of our lives. Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. In Rose’s exploration of the purpose of school, he also reflects on his personal experiences and how those experiences gave him tools that are applicable to his daily life. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, emphasizing how those experiences become crucial to one’s personal growth and potential.

Many are quick to disregard education’s role outside of the classroom. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (Rose 33). Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. By reflecting on his personal experiences and how those gave him the tools applicable to his daily life, he emphasizes why education should never be overlooked. Rose’s use of referencing relatable experiences in a logical manner makes his argument persuasive to the readers and he succeeds in making the readers reconsider why education matters to them. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us effectively persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, which proves true in our everyday lives because the essential aspect of education is what we do with it and how it helps develop one’s personal growth.

The essay ‘Should Everyone Go to College” by Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill reasons whether everyone needs to go to college. Based off of monetary return, graduation percentage, tuition, and selectivity, they decipher the pros and cons of higher education.

In his essay, “Yes a College Education is Worth the Cost,” writer Rodney Smith discusses how students of this generation don’t care about receiving a great education for the future. Throughout his essay he explains how a college education is worth the cost. He stated that people between the ages of 18-34 say they would much rather get a job and make money than spend money to go back to school to obtain a higher degree. Smith’s family grew up in Oklahoma and they viewed education as an investment. Smith was influenced by his father’s upbringing and attended college and law school just like his father. By establishing and building his case about how education is worth the cost, uses a great deal of evidence, his argument is well organized, and he gains the audience’s attention. Background of the author

Many are quick to disregard education’s role outside of the classroom. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (Rose 33). Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. By reflecting on his personal experiences and how those gave him the tools applicable to his daily life, he emphasizes why education should never be overlooked. Rose’s referencing relatable experiences in a logical manner makes his argument persuasive to the readers and he succeeds in making the readers reconsider why education matters to them. In his book Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us, Mike Rose effectively persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, emphasizing how those experiences become crucial to one’s personal growth and potential in our everyday lives.

Many college students choose to also get more than one degree while attending college to earn more income and further their education. College graduates have the choice of get higher level degrees and training resulting in earn even more income based on the different higher level degrees earned and training received (this means the more degrees and training you have the more income you may receive). People with higher level degrees and training earn more money that those without degrees. In 1996, for example, workers with bachelor's degrees had median annual earnings of about $36,000, while college graduates with more advanced degrees earned around $40,000 (Mittelhauser 3). This is a four-thousand dollar difference in income; this is only one of several examples of how people who graduate college make more money than the average high school graduate and that of people with lower-level degrees. The median annual wage for a bachelor’s degree in 2010 was $63,430. While the median annual wage for a person with a doctoral or professional degree in 2010 was $87,500 ("Employment by Education and Training Assignment, 2010 and Projected 2020"). This is almost a twenty-four thousand difference income just based off of median annual wage of different degrees. The income difference from college graduates than to those of high school graduates is great. College graduates are getting better wages and job openings than those of high school graduates (“President’s Perspective:

Caroline Bird’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money” explains her beliefs on why, for some people, going to college is an ineffective and inefficient use of their time. She states that many students do not belong in college because they are there for the wrong reasons and they are not happy learning. She also gives evidence to suggest that going to college and getting a degree does not actually allows a person to make more money in their life time. Her final claim is that college does not prepare most students for the real world and the jobs they will have once they graduate.

Sometimes a college degree does not pay off as one might hope, and sometimes the competitiveness of certain schools or programs make the cost issue even more prominent. When all is said and done, college might lead to debt and the shattering of dreams. Hence, the resounding question is, “is college worth it?” The answer to this questions is even more daunting for today’s average family and prospective high school graduates.

Is college really worth the time and money? This is the question I am going to be exploring. While many people may have an idea that college is just an abundance of debt, other students argue that most of the information they learn doesn’t provide them with the value they thought it would (Adams 1). Many college students who grow up with the opportunity to go to college usually don’t stress the idea of going to school, but most students who don’t have the opportunity to go to school usually make school their priority. Students who don’t have the opportunity to go to school think this way because they want the opportunities they think they could have with a college education. I am deciding to argue about this topic because I grew up in a household that didn’t grow up with parents who stressed college, as a result, I am making a strong effort to get through college. Although college does have some disadvantages, going to college is worth the time and money because it provides critical thinking and opportunities for job advancement.

For me, and probably many of my fellow students, higher education always seemed like a foregone conclusion: I never questioned if I was going to college, just where. No other options ever occurred to me. After working 12-hour shifts in a factory, the other options have become brutally clear. When I'm back at the university, skipping classes and turning in lazy re-writes seems like a cop-out after seeing what I would be doing without school. All the advice and public-service announcements about the value of an education that used to sound trite now ring true."(Braaksma,

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.

According, to the chart “Mean Earning by Age, 2009” students graduated from high school with diploma were earning an estimated $27,000 to $30,000 annual income. Also, the income is sort of steady, it didn’t grow over the years. Secondly, people that have associated degree and some college were making an average $36,000 to 40,000 a year. Additionally, they are both kind of the same with the year salaries. Thirdly, people who had bachelor’s degree earned between $40,000 $60,000 a year with gradual growing their salaries. The salaries of People with master’s degree were starting in between $50,000 and it grows to $83,000; however, it decreased after 49 years. People with doctoral degree were earning an average of $10,000. Finally, people with

Students with only a high school diploma are less likely to get jobs, have lower job salaries, and chances of poverty are more likely to occur with high school graduates rather than college students. According to Tiffany Hsu from the LA Times, navigating the job market without a college degree is extremely difficult. Less than half the jobs lost in the recession have come back, and nearly all of them require some sort of college education. According to Hsu’s sources, low-education workers have significant pressure put on them, especially since by 2020, about two-thirds of the jobs in the U.S. will require education and training beyond high school. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the 1995-2012 median of earnings that young adults with high school credential was about $30,000, and those who failed to complete high school is $20,000, which are both low incomes. In 2008, the poverty rate for high school graduates was 12 percent, and for married couples that are both high school graduates, the rate was 7.1 percent, which is more compared to one with a bachelor’s degree, which is 4 percent(Sandy Baum, Jennifer Ma, and Kathleen Pays). For a married couple that both have bachelor’s degrees, the poverty rate is 1.8 percent (Baum and

Regardless of the way that bachelor's degree holders enter the workforce at a later age and swear off "situation costs," - or money they could have made in the midst of those years rather than being in school - all through their lifetimes, they made an ordinary of over $1 million more than some person with just an high school degree, and those with associate's degrees made $325,000 more than those with high school diplomas.