Introduction: The essay College is a Waste of Time and Money written by Caroline Bird in 1975 addresses a topic that still plagues most young adults today. Is college worth it? Just like in the title Bird discusses her points of view about whether or not every person should to go to college or not. She adds other views points and opinions into the mix such as no student actually wants to go to college that it isn’t a smart investment financially. There are points that are agreeable and others that are not, but when it comes down to it there should not be only two answers; yes or no. College is not for everyone and people should not be forced to choose one of the other. Caroline Bird tries to say this but some of her arguments fall flat.
Argument: …show more content…
One of her first arguments is that is not the smartest investment to make. The example she makes is that of a young man whose uncle gave him enough money to pay for four years’ worth of college tuition. From there she states that if that young man was to put the money into a savings account age 22 and let it sit by the time he was 64 he would have over one million dollars. However, there are several flaws with Bird’s statement. The biggest flaws are that this young man was able to find a bank that not only has a 7.2 percent interest on a savings account but that it is also compounded daily. Anyone reading this should be able to think of their own savings account and see that this is just not plausible. Most of us are lucky if we can get anything over one percent on our interest. Furthermore, who has ever heard of interest compounded daily—monthly is much more likely. Another weak point of this argument is that this scenario is only possible if the account is never touched. In a perfect world this would easy but sadly unexpected things happen in life. Cars breakdown. Homes get damaged. People get hurt. All of these things require money and a lot of the time we are not prepared for them, which means that sometimes money would need to be taken out of the savings account. Maybe if Bird’s information was more realistic it would hold some
Argument: …show more content…
One of her first arguments is that is not the smartest investment to make. The example she makes is that of a young man whose uncle gave him enough money to pay for four years’ worth of college tuition. From there she states that if that young man was to put the money into a savings account age 22 and let it sit by the time he was 64 he would have over one million dollars. However, there are several flaws with Bird’s statement. The biggest flaws are that this young man was able to find a bank that not only has a 7.2 percent interest on a savings account but that it is also compounded daily. Anyone reading this should be able to think of their own savings account and see that this is just not plausible. Most of us are lucky if we can get anything over one percent on our interest. Furthermore, who has ever heard of interest compounded daily—monthly is much more likely. Another weak point of this argument is that this scenario is only possible if the account is never touched. In a perfect world this would easy but sadly unexpected things happen in life. Cars breakdown. Homes get damaged. People get hurt. All of these things require money and a lot of the time we are not prepared for them, which means that sometimes money would need to be taken out of the savings account. Maybe if Bird’s information was more realistic it would hold some