Learning By Degrees By Rebecca Mead Summary

The New Yorker’s staff writer, Rebecca Mead addresses the viewpoints of college in her article, “Learning by Degrees”. In her article, she mentions the difficulty recent college graduates face to earn a decent job related to their major. Briefly reviewing the statistical side, Mead questions what benefit college brings to college students and graduates. Referencing a metaphor between college graduates and mail carriers, she lists the different possibilities college students could have used their money. Half-way through her article she references critiques done to intellectuals. To finish the article, Mead argues the opposing side, college can bring a benefit to a person further than financial aid in the future. Rebecca Mead ineffectively implements modes of persuasion to a broad audience to argue for the benefits of college toward the character of a person.
Rebecca Mead has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1997 (Dphiffer). Her experience in …show more content…
At the beginning of the article, the argument is based around the idea that earning a career at college does not mean a job after college. The article takes a twist, and slowly brings in the idea that maybe the skepticism of college should be questioned. First mentioning the involvement of successful college graduates like Barack Obama, and then even using some logic, “…one needn’t necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic advancement” (Mead 434). This statement turns the argument which seemed to be before against college, towards college. The article uses different modes of persuasion to conclude this as an argumentative article, which becomes less effective when so much information is provided from both sides. With so much information, the purpose of an argument is lessened and turned more into an informative article affecting the