College In America By Caroline Bird Summary

In Caroline Bird’s “College in America”, she describes the belief that college is the key to success for all high school graduates as a “noble American ideal” (336). Bird portrays the United States as the first nation to influence everyone to pursue a higher education. However, Bird asserts that striving for a college education is not the best option for every high school graduate, due to the money being invested and the lack of jobs being offered for college graduates. I endorse Bird’s argument that “it [the assumption that college is indispensable to succeed] violates the fundamental principle of respect” (336) because college only comes naturally to a few, not everyone is fit for the challenges that come along. College is not the perfect …show more content…
Society has established the idea that everyone can be compared equally based on the higher education obtained. Parents send their children to college with the belief that the outcome will result in a mass amount of money. Unfortunately, according to Bird, college is “the dumbest investment” a student can make “if money is the only goal” (336). Indeed, if money is the only motivation, striving to obtain a higher education is not the best decision for a high school graduate. Bird states that going to college does not guarantee that the college graduate will get a high paying job. In fact, many of the college graduates terminate being in debt, due to the amount of loans being used to pay the overpriced college education. For example, one of my high school teachers told me that college was not the best option for her financially. She explained how her parents’ forced her into college to …show more content…
Society has made the assumption that receiving a college education will turn you into a doctor, lawyer or member of any other high paying occupation. However, today the amounts of college graduates succeeding in obtaining a job in these professions are very slim. The amount of unemployment has increased in our society because of the ratio of the few amounts of jobs being offered compared to the great amount of college graduates looking for a job. In addition to the scarce amount of jobs being offered, Bird argues that college does not prepare you for work. College graduates explain that the knowledge gained in college does not relate to their job. Some professionals assert that college was a waste of time because they learned how to do their job at work. Other college graduates inform us that their major has nothing to do with their