Two Years Are Better Than Four Essay

In their articles, “Two Years Are Better Than Four” and “Are Too Many People Going to College?” Liz Addison and Charles Murray discuss how colleges now are much different than colleges in the past. The college experience has changed since people, such as Rick Perlstein, went to college. Even though the college experience is ever evolving, it can still be a very important part of someone’s life. Even if it is not at a “four-year brick-and-mortar residential college” (Murray 229) like many parents and high school faculty push students to go to right away. In “Two Years Are Better Than Four”, Liz Addison argues that college does still matter. That college is still a place you leave with a head full of dreams. She believes this is true because …show more content…
Even though the four-year brick-and-mortar residential college is out of style, Murray states that “the two-year community college and online courses offer more flexible options for tailoring course work to the real needs of a job” (230). Most students going to college now are going for practical and vocational degrees. Degrees that a four-year course, 32 semester long credits, is not practical for. As students graduate high-school, they are now strongly encouraged to go to a university. In response to this push by parents and high-school faculty, Murray states that even though it is true that someone holding a “B.A. makes more” than someone “without a B.A., getting a B.A. is still” the economically incorrect choice “for many high-school graduates” (234). As opposed to deciding that you, as a student, want to get a B.A. just to get a job, you need to weigh the costs. Will you make enough money holding a B.A. to combat the loans you had to take out in order to get a B.A.? Or should you get a vocational degree in the career field you want to go …show more content…
Community colleges are a great place to start your higher education. Although this is true, many people don’t think highly of community colleges, and think that someone who wants to do something big should go to a four-year college or university. I personally experienced the bias towards community colleges because a four-year college is “more prestigious and gives higher quality education and degrees”. I want to become an equine vet, and everyone knew that. Living in California, I was pushed and pushed to go straight to UC Davis. No one understood why I didn’t want to go to UC Davis. “It’s the best veterinary school in the nation” they would exclaim passionately when I told them I wanted to go to a community college first and then go to Oregon State University (OSU) to get my Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine (DVM). In their mind, why would I choose to go to a community college instead of straight to a UC? All of my friends did. All of my friends went straight to places like UC Los Angeles (UCLA), or UC San Diego (UCSD). Not only did I experience bias towards community colleges, but also towards non-UC schools. My dad tried to convince me that OSU was the bottom ranking school for DVM students. My veterinary science teacher, who was also my Future Farmers of America (FFA) advisor, was the only one who didn’t seem to want to make my decisions about school for me. Even my parents pushed me to go to UC