The Importance Of Higher Education By Justin Cox

Everyone should go to college: many people grew up hearing and believing that this was true. President Obama even calls high education “an economic imperative.” Two women authors, Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill, wrote “If they [Americans] choose wisely and attend a school with generous financial aid and high expected earnings, and if they don’t just enroll, but graduate, they can greatly improve their lifetime prospects,” published in 2013 in the article, Should Everyone Go to College? Owen and Sawhill begin building their credibility with numerous amounts of statistics, educating their readers with variations in the return to education, and by utilizing visual aids to allow their audience to better understand such information. By doing

At the beginning of “Why Everyone Shouldn’t Go to College” Cuban states that many of the low paying jobs are being filled by B.A. and B.S. graduates. This is shocking because the author then continues with “Other college graduates return to community colleges to get training for medical and technical jobs.” This shines a light on the ugly truths of our education systems. Next Cuban delves into the growth of CTE programs and uses evidence collected by James Kemper which shows that students who participate in a CTE program earned more than those who hadn’t. The author uses this information to heighten the idea that it is no longer necessary for students to obtain a college degree. The study is in full support that students shouldn’t attend college

If there were more college graduates than the economy needed, the pay gap would shrink." He talks about how the gaps growth in recent years is due in part to the large number of people who went back to school during the Great Recession, and goes on to say "That the pay gap has nonetheless continued to growing means we are nt producing enough of them (college graduates). " Leonhardt also discusses how nothing, not even a 4 year college degre can gauerentee success, considering the past 15 years of disappointing economic growth ad rising inequality. But, that doesnt take away the value of a 4-year college degree. Leonhardt brings up the fact that many of the experts and journalists saying that college is not worth it may end up discouraging teenagers and adults from going to school to earn degrees.

Marty Nemko, in the article, “We Send Too Many Students To College,” acknowledges that colleges have become obscenely expensive and that it is possible to be successful without going to college. Arguing that too many students are sent to college without realizing that it is not imperative, Nemko targets parents in his claims that colleges focus on educating in the cheapest way possible and most importantly, that the advantage of past college graduates in the job market is declining. One of his main reasons is that even though the average college graduate makes more money, hundreds of thousands of students in the bottom half of their high school class do not succeed in higher education. Nemko’s article is the most persuasive article on whether college education still has value as he argues that college is not beneficial to everyone through demonstrations of hyperbole, and figurative language.

The reason school boards and parents and teachers elaborate on going to college is simply due to the affiliation of college, money, and success. You often hear things such as, go to college to get a good job in order to make more money. With that said, we have been brainwashed into believing college is the only route that’ll lead to a rewarding life. However, “In California, 260,000 college graduates under the age of 30 are working in low-paying jobs that have historically gone to high school graduates and dropouts such as food services, retail sales, and clerical work (Cuban pg.1).” Why would college graduates waste their education and work in low-paying jobs? Possibly, the pressure of going to college striped them of their desire to gain an education that they didn’t want in the first place. Many people want to graduate high school and automatically search for a job or join a brief program that can increase their work ethics. College is not for everyone. In fact, “According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2015–2016 school year was $32,405 at private colleges, $9,410 for state residents at public colleges, and $23,893 for out-of-state residents attending public universities.” You may have heard the saying, “You need to spend money to make money.” However, going back to Cuban’s research, while spending massive amounts of money just to come

Journalist David Leonhardt, in his article “Is College Worth It? Clearly New Data Say,” argues, through the use of statistical data, that from both a financial and economical perspective, that pursuing a higher education is beneficial. Leonhardt provides data from the Economic Policy Institute that states that, “Americans with four-year college degrees [made] 98% more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree.” Furthermore, on average, college graduates make “about $32.60” an hour while the average wage for those who did not pursue higher education is “about $16.50.” The disparity in wages should be a sufficient reason for pursuing a higher education. Yet, Leonhardt concedes that there is and will always be a percentage of graduates that will be unsuccessful in finding employment. According to Leonhardt, this unfortunate

It has been a heavily debated topic over whether college is worth it or not. In “College’s Value,” college professor Eric Hoover explains his studies of college degrees and concludes that attending college has greater benefits than we expect. Nowadays, when families think of college, they think about the amount of financial burden instead of what they will gain from attending. In this article, Hoover states, “Yet the perceived benefits of attending college go well beyond the dollars” (Hoover 1). He writes how diplomas help receive better and higher paying jobs. Hoover is persuasive by using statistics, interviews with undergraduates and graduates, and acknowledging the opposing views as well as refuting them.

In the context “Even for Cashiers College Pays Off”, Leonhardt argues that going to college is not a waste of time, only that the college education needs improvement. College education requires money and so that’s the reason why some people consider it as a waste of time. However, college students get financial aid, and money is not a problem to them. In the context, Leonhardt explains how America got benefits from engaging a lot into college education before other countries. Leonhardt analyzes the importance of college education, where he asserts that the college graduates earn more salary than the non-college graduates do (Bauknight 22). Moreover, the college graduates have higher chances of being employed than the non-college graduates. Life in college is not as expensive as people say because the college students get financial aids that enhance fees payment. College education helps in enhancing skills and increasing salaries of workers. According to Leonhardt, college education is important because it instills knowledge and discipline among students, and ensures increased benefits in jobs that do not require degrees as a qualification.

Education, “is a prerequisite not only for individual educational success but for upward mobility both socially and economically.” (Reardon 18) Reardon demonstrates the importance of national education, “much of the growth in the economy in recent decades has been in areas requiring moderate to high-level literacy skills, economic growth in the United States relies increasingly on the literacy skills of the labor force.” With the increasing demand for workers with college degrees, American companies may have to look elsewhere for capable workers. In Flannery’s article Ann Shadwick, a NEA delegate, explains that “American employers should not need to import qualified, college-educated employees from other countries. Students here should get what they need to be employable, and their teachers—from K12 onward—should have needed resources and training, especially in technology.” Shadwick brings up a good point, teachers need to be qualified to teach and prepare their students for the

He concludes the article with restating his thesis that it is definitely worth going to college today for almost everyone. He then goes on to end the article with the concept of the growing complexity of jobs in the economy and the necessity of a college education to meet the demands of the newly emerging economy (35). Leonhardt makes strong points to base his argument in this article and uses convincing language and credible sources to prove his agenda. He clearly makes an impact on his readers and clearly displays his position on an issue of great importance in today’s

As college has become more accessible over the past few years, more American students are being encouraged to attend. However, not everyone believes this is a benefit to society. Political scientist, Charles Murray, voices his controversial opinions in his paper entitled, What’s Wrong With Vocational School?. Murray argues the merits of non-traditional post-secondary education, such as vocational schools and technical colleges, while simultaneously condemning the results of the “false premium” placed on a college degree. He believes that due to the stigma surrounding tradesmen, many people are encouraged to attend college to “get a better job”, despite the fact that a degree promises no such thing.

All careers from construction workers, to teachers, to attorneys are all important in today’s society, and it is important to let the adolescence to choose the path they take in their life. Sending fewer young people to college will not solve the country’s national debt problem. Companies will still send their work across seas in order for them to pay less and make more, even if the United States has enough labor workers in the country. Sending young people to college, or even a trade school, is better because they are gaining knowledge that they would have never had without attending a higher institution of learning.

The topic of “Are Too Many People Going to College?” was presented by Charles Murray, the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise. In today’s world college is a must due to many employers seeking educated individuals. Murray develops an interesting conversation by demonstrating that many high school graduates who are seeking to go to college do not need a degree depending on their career paths. Murray provides the analogy of a high school graduate who is looking to become an electrician but is not sure if college is the most logical decision. Murray acknowledges the fact that a B.A. does not necessarily led to a higher income than one with a degree. The logical argument of money is brought to attention and is stated “the income for the top people in a wide variety of occupations that do not require a college degree is higher than the average income for many occupations that require a B.A.” (Murray 247). Although this is his main point, he understand that it varies due to the occupation one is leaning towards. There has been individuals without a college degree that are making millions of dollars, but it varies. Murray claims that getting a B.A. is going to be the wrong economic decision for many high school graduates (Murray 246); however not everyone wants to be an electrician or any other hand held jobs that doesn’t necessarily need a degree, but if one wants to be a lawyer, doctor, or anything require a degree, college is the answer. Having a degree in a

Supporters of getting a college degree often point to the statistics that college graduates earn more than their high school educated peers over a lifetime. Statistics by the U.S. Census Bureau reports that since 1977, “Adults with bachelor's degrees in the late 1970s earned 55 percent more than adults who had not advanced beyond high school. That gap grew to 75 percent by 1990 -- and is now at 85 percent.” A gap of an 85% pay difference is a huge figure and a clear reason why college is a great option for some people. But there are problems with that figure because when the number of college graduates who are either unemployed or underemployed is taken into account it changes the value of the statistic. In an article by Businessweek’s Richard Vedder we get statistics to counter that argument. He tells of how the number of new college graduates far exceeds job growth in technical, managerial, and professional jobs where graduates traditionally have searched for employment. As a consequence, we have underemployed college graduates doing jobs historically performed by those with just a highschool education. He says we have “more than 100,000 janitors with

Education in today’s day in age has evolved to become an intricate system of developing individual knowledge on social values and academic knowledge in the context of a technologically advanced global society.