College Education: The Key To The American Dream

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Education is important because it opens doors to different opportunities. In America, we are told that a higher education will give us the chance to have the American Dream. So everyone sees a college education as a good thing. A college degree is supposed to be the key to the American Dream. We are told that when you obtain your degree, it is the only way to truly succeed in life. The truth is that many college graduates are still unemployed after they graduate from college. Many of these graduates are unemployed because they cannot find a job in the field of study they had in college. Also, the cost of college is not always equal to the income graduates earn when they graduate. Since 2000, the hourly rate of college graduates has decreased …show more content…

More people are employed now than in the last 10 to 17 years. Also on average college graduates are employed quicker than those who did not graduate. This should be good news for a college graduate but there or still many college graduates who are unemployable. The field of study that they chose does not equal to employment in the real world. For many of these people, their degree is useless because it does not help them to get a job. This like artificial intelligence, smart devices, integrated technology, automation, and robotics are changing the job market and certain fields are study are now obsolete or has changed dramatically. Many colleges have not updated their curriculum to reflect the changing times and their graduates are not equipped to function in the job market. So for many graduates, the four-year college degree that they have obtained is …show more content…

Since 2000, the wages of a college graduate have decreased. The average hourly wages for a male college graduate in 2000 was $22.75, but the year 2010 it had dropped to $21.77. The female college graduate is even less than the male college graduate. In 2000, female college graduates earned an average of $19.38 and by 2010 female graduates was making $18.43 (Shierholz 9.) College graduates are experiencing lower wages as prices for food, housing, clothing, and transportation has increased. So college graduates do not get as much for their money as people who graduated decades before them. This is especially true for the female college student who had to pay the same fees as a male college student but her wages are $3.00 less per hour. This means that female students are penalized for their gender and have to pay a higher cost for their education by having a smaller hourly rate than male graduates. Even though the female graduate is affected most, all college graduates are paying higher tuition and fees for jobs that are paying less money. The declining wages make a four-year degree worthless for those who have high debts and lower wages in an economy where the cost of everything is always going

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