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What Does a College Education Buy An

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The Virtues of Higher Education In the essay “What A College Education Buys” written by Christopher Caldwell, the author questions whether or not the value of a college education today supports the high cost of obtaining a degree. Having a college degree is viewed as having achieved some measure of accomplishment. People think you are more intelligent for having gone to college. Employers seem to be more eager to hire college graduates. Certainly we have been told that having a degree will help to ensure you earn more money. But is being a college graduate an obtainable goal for everyone? Can we afford to succeed or has college become one more area that is reserved for more affluent people? According to the Caldwell “…the price of…show more content…
Clearly, if you want to earn a decent wage that will enable you to support yourself you need to do more than just finish high school. A solution proposed by Caldwell is that we focus not in a specific degree, but rather a “liberal education” in order to justify the high cost of college (214). He goes on to state that “…if you’re not planning on becoming, say, a doctor. The benefits of diligent study can be overstated” (214). This makes sense. Firstly, unless you are working towards being employed in a specific field of study, it would be advantageous to a student to be educated more broadly, thus widening their scope of opportunity. The more knowledge and experience you have in different areas, the more versatile you will be as an employee and in life overall. Also, the auditing of colleges can be done to ensure that students are receiving the education they are paying for. In response to Mr. Caldwell’s essay, I agree that the cost of college education is exorbitant. First, the cost of books alone can be several hundred dollars not including additional codes and materials to access online materials. There are several hidden fees such as parking, student IDs and other various miscellaneous items. Secondly, it seems as though some instructors have little interest in teaching. Instead they have canned responses and make little effort to interact. Rather than feeling as though you are participating
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