College isn't for everyone especially for those who are forced into it. Although it may be a helpful tool for people, it can sometimes lead them to make some of the most intricate decisions in their lives. This may be a different story for those people who do know what their aiming for in life and actually need a degree to further succeed in their career. If you were a student today or if you are already one wouldn't you agree with some of these points. It seems like whenever you hear about students these days you usually here the discussions of if their degrees are really worth it or that their simply going to college because they were told to go either by family or schools. Yes there are people who already know what they want and may have a more concrete plan on how take on college. But what about all of the other people that don't know what they want to be yet. Is it right for them to be getting constantly fed information on why they need to go to college from other people and how they wont succeed if they don't go.
Someone who has personally experienced some of these types of standpoints is my girlfriend. Many of the problems that she has faced with her higher education have been just that of what I have described from the beginning that she didn't even want to go to college but had to because her parents forced her too. Some reasons why she didn't want to go was simply that she wasn't in a good financial standpoint at the time and that she still simply didn't know what she wanted to major in. Overall in through time she managed to come up with what she wanted to major in and that was hospitality in food and beverage. Now nearing the end of her college life she is starting to have second thoughts on if her major that she pursued in was really worth the grueling price of a $90,000 dollar college education. When someone without that kind of degree could also get a similar job in which she is going for.
In this article called a "Lifetime of student debt? Not Likely" written by Robin Wilson. He persuades his audience by describing how many of today's college students don't end up with so much debt after school. Providing examples on how many of the students that do have debt are typically around the twenty thousand dollar range which is not overall that bad comparing to the fact that he mentions that the price of a 2009 Ford Escape is just about that. Progressing in his topic he goes on the discussion about how kids that do end up with such monstrous debts and how that it is ultimately their own decision to pay that much for their kind of education depending on what they want to do. Saying that it is a good thing to pay that much for an education that will give you a good paying job but not good if it will be going towards a career that will not be that financially efficient.
I do agree with Williams at certain points towards his argument like for the fact that people should spend a lot of money on their education only if their career will be a good paying one. But I disagree when he mentions that it is a student's fault on their own decision too pay so much for an education that wont be all that financial great. Like my girlfriend as an example, she did not accumulate all of that debt all by that simple degree. It all had added up from the very beginning of her college life on first not really wanting to go. Maybe if she would have known what she wanted to do before just being forced into college her debt would have not snow balled into such a significant figure.
When it comes down to the topic on pushing kids to go to college straight out of high school. I Believe Patricia McGuire the President of Trinity Washington University describes it perfectly on why forcing kids to go to college can have a more negative effect than positive towards students and their thoughts about college. In McGuire's previous work back in 2012 she mentions that the government mandates that students must do two things before they can even graduate. Those two things are that each student would have to at least submit one college application and also that they would have to take the SAT tests. Not only does she state that this shouldn't be necessary but she mentions that if kids were not to do that great on there SAT's then it wouldn't even help them get into the college that they had already applied for. Which would in turn create them to doubt themselves even more for thinking that they are not even intellectually capable to go to college.
My own experience with this is very similar to how McGuire explains it. While in high school I was constantly being told by my counselors and teachers to start applying for colleges when they didn't even know what i wanted to do in my life. Struggling to get good grades and having to deal with the fact that i had done horrible in my SAT's I couldn't help but feel that I wasn't even good enough for a higher education. This slowly made me to start looking even less forward too on actually going to college just by thinking I wouldn't be able to keep up with good grades. The grades that i have gotten throughout my life weren't the only thing that made it harder for me a lot also had to do with how I was even raised in school. it had always felt like i wasn't able to do what i wanted.
There are many different ways on how people can be raised up to think about their education. The way they are taught from little kids up to their teenage years can make the strongest impact on what would be the best path to take after high school. According to Peter Gray,"More than 2 million children in the United States now base their education at home and in the larger community rather than at school, and an ever-increasing proportion of their families have scrapped set curricular approaches in favor of self-directed learning".
How Gray describes his words through out the text he shows how he describes people are more willing to learn on their own when given the freedom to study anything they want. Instead of having schools basically focus on one direct path. The way i believe he try's to put it as is that if a person wishes to further educate his or herself it should be completely up to them instead of being forced to do something they don't want to.
Although College can give many students a better edge on what their majoring in. It may also not always be necessary for people to take depending on how they already are in that field. For instance my brother as a mechanic has not needed to go to college in order to learn and have a good career in the automotive industry.
As I quote from the words of Mike Rose the writer of "Blue Collar Brilliance" "Although writers and scholars have often looked at the working class, they have generally focused on the values such workers exhibit rather than on the thought their work requires a subtle but pervasive omission". There is much that I like to say about this quote that I like so very much. I believe this shows how people with higher education look down on people that didn't do the same, and how they don't even look deeply on how it does not only require manual labor to do a job like being a mechanic or waitress. While my brother didn't need a higher education to get through in his career it still did not make him unsuccessful. This just goes to show how school is not necessary for everyone.
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