Marty Nemko Higher Education

Author Marty Nemko’s article “America’s Most Overrated Product: Higher Education” published originally in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Nemko explains the lack of development in high school is attributed to the failure students have in college. Nemko goes a step further by also describing why students that have the caliber in qualifying to attend a greater institution fail as well. The issues behind such failures become attributed to the way colleges advertise themselves and prioritize the learning experience of their students. The neglect of a top education at the expense of higher profits in areas such as research ends up damaging the development of intellectual students. Nemko concludes his article by stating possible changes that could …show more content…
Nemko utilize information from the Pew Charitable Trusts, a global research and public policy organization, in conveying that “50 percent of college seniors failed a test that required them to do such basic tasks as interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, or compare credit card offers.” Such evidence helps support one of the many areas Nemko sees as a careless handling of a proper education from the higher education system. Nemko follows up with additional statistics from the U.S Department of Education’s Higher Education Commission Report detailing that “the percentage of college graduates deemed proficient in prose literacy has actually declined from 40 to 31 percent in the past decade.” Both use of Nemko’s statistic seek to not only convince but to inform the audience of the lack of basic skills graduates will fall short during their post-graduate lives. Reasoning with logical evidence assist with getting the message that Nemko attempts to get across future students and …show more content…
The transition is done to combine both the student and college to develop his overall points for the sections to follow. The author relies, in the last two sections, in questions as opening statements to draw in the audience. Nemko uses “How much do college students actually learn?” and “What must be done to improve undergraduate education?” to drive interest into each section of the article. Under each section, Nemko provides combinations of examples or statistical information to solidify every point he creates. This is true within most of the article but with the exception of the last section. The last section provides a personal proposition of the solution to both students and educational institution that fail to disclose helpful information to help students with the enrollment decision. Nemko adds possible solutions to his organization strategy because as a career counselor, he seeks to warn and help individuals based on the countless amount of past