What Are The Pros And Cons Of Is College Worth Anything?

Improved Essays
Is College Worth Anything? Higher Education 's Pros and Cons Some people believe that higher education is an investment that will pay off in the long run. While other people think it is a waste of time and money. The reason why universities and colleges are worth the four plus years and an expensive cost are due to the amount of money a college grad can make afterward. An article written on ProCon can help a person to understand the pros and cons regarding higher education. The article illustrates an argument between the pros and cons of having a degree. Individuals who argue that college is worth it, believe that college graduates have a higher chance of employment, have bigger salaries, and have more work benefits than high school graduates. …show more content…
The authors provide many examples. The first is teaching a student is not enough anymore. The professor needs to become more conscientious, caring, and attentive to every corner of their classroom. Second, to make students use their minds, teacher need to make their student think outside the box instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing. Also, they need to test the student’s understanding without worrying about a possible payoff. Third, make the college presidents be public servants because they should not be making more money to do less. They should be paid as if they were the best administrator not to earn more because of their title. And finally, increase funding all around. We all have many choices, and we should be investing our money and time in …show more content…
However, a recent study indicates that higher education is extremely valuable due to an increase in salary and benefits. On average, a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree earned $57,000 more per year than a high school graduate. In 2011, earning an associate’s degree was worth about $17,000 more than a high school graduate. The median income for families who had a bachelor’s degree earned double than an associate degree (“Procon Argument” 1). In addition, Sanford Ungar, who believes that everyone should go to college and receive a liberal arts degree, writes “career education is what we now must focus on, many families are indeed struggling in the depths of the recession to pay for their children’s college education, yet liberal arts offer is a better investment that ever” (191). He wrote the essay “7 Major Misperceptions About the Liberal Arts”. In this article, he explains the benefits of getting a liberal arts degree. In misperception 2, he said that even though people believe the idea of “who wants to hire someone with an irrelevant degree?” (191). Businesses prefer students to have liberal arts degrees because liberal arts schools focus on the key factors that they are looking for. For instance, 89% of companies included in a 2009 survey reported that they were looking for more

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Sanford Ungar argues the importance that a liberal arts degree holds today in America to those who are skeptic in his article, “The New Liberal Arts.” There are several points Ungar disproves. Ungar states that the job market was tough to crack into among all majors. Liberal arts have nothing to do with politics and can’t be related to democratic ideology according to Ungar. Several institutions that provide secondary education have liberal arts degrees which gives several opportunities for students to attain an education accessible to them.…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Going to college and obtaining a degree for an individual's chosen career is just as questionable as to the worth of being in debt and wasting years on useless courses. Some would agree that a liberal degree could be the solution to all of this, and some will oppose the wasted time and money spent on education that should have already been obtained from grade school. In the following articles, Charles Murray ‘Are Too Many People Going to College’ and Sanford J. Ungar’s ‘The New Liberal Arts,’ explain the hardships about the collegiate standards and what it should consist of in order to have an individual’s future successful. Using these rhetorical devices greatly show how the education system in college has been immeasurably depreciated in value and in return caused an escalation of student debt and an insufficient, useless degree.…

    • 1358 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Higher Education To begin with, this essay deals with two authors and their opinions about higher education. Sandford J Ungar is the president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland . He wrote “The new liberal arts”, in this essay he clarified the misperceptions of obtaining a liberal arts degree. The second author, Charles Murray works at an American enterprise institute, conservative think tank in Washington, DC. He wrote” Are too many people going to college? ” .…

    • 1368 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Yoni Applebam’s essay titled “A Liberal Arts Education for Business Majors” was published in The Atlantic on June 28th, 2016.This article is about why business majors should consider getting educated in liberal arts. To summarize the article, it mainly talked about how business majors are too focused on their business degrees, when they should be focusing on liberal arts, too. The reason for this is while people can still get jobs in their field, more and more businesses and companies are looking for people who also have a degree in liberal arts, as well as what their actual job requires them to have. They find liberal arts majors more innovative. Applebaum also states that they want someone with “an education that allows them to grow, adapt,…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Value of Education: A Liberal Approach Three Reasons College Still Matters, Stand and Deliver, Education’s Hungry Hearts, and Admiral McRaven’s speech at the University of Texas convey the value of education. Three Reasons College Still Matters by Andrew Delbanco discusses the major advantages of college education, particularly economic, political and personal development — the latter of the three being dismissed by college attendees and high school graduates alike. The economic advantage of college education is well known by parents and stressed to children by family and schools. For the many, it is the prime reason to attend college and serves as the first step towards working up the social ladder. In his essay, Delbanco includes the…

    • 762 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    While it is true that college tuitions can be exorbitant, I still maintain that getting an undergraduate degree will pay off much further in the future than a high school diploma. Sanford J. Ungar, president of Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, author of “The New Liberal Arts” claim that “the critique… seems to be fueled by the reliance on common misperceptions” (226). It is important for people, especially high-schoolers, to know the truth about going to college and all the little things that go with it before deciding for themselves. Gillian B. White, a senior associate editor at The Atlantic and author of the article, “Even With Debt, College Still Pays Off”, insists that “Though the cost of college is increasing, a variety of empirical…

    • 1036 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    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).…

    • 1254 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In “Should Everyone Go to College,” Owen and Sawhill states that college allows students who graduate to earn a higher rate of income; however, various factors should be considered before choosing a degree. Moreover, the authors clarify that while the value of college outweighs the costs associated with earning a degree, just any college degree is not the best investment one could make to ensure the completion and success of their education. The authors also explain that the value of college can outweigh the costs associated with completing a degree. Owen and Sawhill emphasized that college improves certain values, such as job satisfaction and overall well-being, while also improving equally-as-important more monetary values such as graduates’…

    • 1232 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College: To Go or Not to Go? Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill unveiled the constructive and adverse features of obtaining a college degree in the article, “Should Everyone Go to College?” “A bachelor’s degree is not a smart investment for every student in every circumstance” (Owen and Sawhill 222). The author’s stress to their audience that college is not for everyone and…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He includes surveys, strong research, expert opinions, and other forms of supported data. One point that he makes is how attending a liberal arts college could potentially be the better investment giving the individual a much more broad education preparing them for a number of potential field of work rather than just one specific. To support this claim Ungar turns to Geoffrey Garin who is the president of Hart Research Associates (227). By turning to someone who is an advocate in this area or research enhances the authors validity of the argument. Ungar also referred to a survey conducted by the Associates of American Colleges and Universities from 2009 (228).…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    There has been a debate on whether College is still worth the cost. There are arguments that there are jobs that don't require degree and that wages after going down and there are opportunities that don't require college. I believe that furthering your education is more worth it in the long run because you make more money and people who finish college consider it an investment, Also a liberal arts degree is well rounded and will suit many career paths if you are unsure what you want to do. The first reason I support furthering education is people who finish college make more money. David Leonhardt wrote” Even for Cashiers, College Pays Off” and in this article he wrote “three decades ago, full-time workers with a bachelor’s degree made 40…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    What Is College Worth It

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Is College Worth It ? that's the big question for most students now because the cost of college is increasing and jobs are getting hard to get .In today’s society now college has become an requirement .We grew up being taught without an education beyond an high school diploma that it's going to be harder in life that the higher your education the more you will be successful. That is not true college doesn't guarantee success they are many other ways to succeed without a college degree. College is not worth it because a college degree doesn’t guarantee employment ,the burden of student debt and college dropouts .…

    • 108 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In his arguments, Ungar points out that while many believe a “liberal-arts degree is a luxury,” it is not (227). It may indeed be true that pursuing such a degree is more expensive and that families are struggling financially, but Ungar argues that it “a better investment” as it teaches the students how to communicate in an effective way and how to be critical thinkers which allows for them to be “innovative and creative” (227-228). He then supports this by making a claim based off a survey in 2009 that the majority of the employers are indeed looking for those with a liberal arts education instead due to them possessing the abilities already mentioned. Another argument he makes is that one should not just focus on the STEM fields and that one should expand and diversify their learning, which is what a liberal arts education can provide (229). While Ungar admits that while it is possible to gain such an education through a larger university, it does not provide “a close interaction between faculty members and students” and that there isn’t a “sens of community” (232).…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The value of a college degree is a dispute that is commonly contemplated, yet rarely answered. I will attempt to express my attitude towards college education, personally defined as an Associate’s Degree for returning adult students. In an effort to explain the greater benefits of a college degree despite the common rhetoric that it is not financially worthwhile, I have considered the positive and negative effects of doing so. I have examined the following articles, “Learning by Degrees and Live Chat With the Author,” “The Major and the Job Market, the dream and the reality,” and “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” to support my stance. When one maintains a desire to progress academically and an open-mindedness to educational demands in the…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    College Education Worth the Cost Whether college education is worth the cost being is a heated discussion topic. Some individuals think that college’s tuition fee is too expensive. Most graduates are not able to find a job with their degrees when they are graduated from university. People also think that college education is not worth the money because some students have to pay back in loans after they graduate.…

    • 1134 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays