College, the most common choice for a student who wants to pursue an upper education. A majority of students that attend college turn out to be successful in what they eventually pursue. However, there is also a small portion of students that go to college and end up dropping out or do not find a job upon graduation. The author uses this fact to drive home her main point. Caroline Bird, the author of “College is a Waste of Time and Money”, makes a claim that college is a waste; however, it is ineffective because she has a numerous amount of personal opinions that include bias, as well as a large amount of facts that have fallacy.
As previously stated, personal opinions plague this paper. It seems that the author had once gone to college, but
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she had been on the lower tier like I stated earlier.
This left her upset and eventually made her take her anger out on the college education system. She even relates college to a prison in the paper which is confusing because they are practically two polar opposites. College opens up worlds of opportunity for people where as prison can be the end of your social life. Bird starts out this article by expressing her idea that college is not what it was in the past; it is no longer the best place for high school graduates to spend their time. Also, take into account that this paper was written about 40 years ago, so times and ideas have changed since then. She then proceeds to do a short analysis of a modern day college student. One who has little funds and no self-confidence when it comes to constructive criticism. All in all, she says that a majority of college students are unhappy and hang around the college very reluctantly. One comparison that speaks the truth is the notion that college students of today …show more content…
are similar to the women of the past. Society believes that when a student graduates high school the proper place they should be is in college, much like how society believed that the proper place for a women was in the kitchen, back in the early 20th century. Bird then states her belief that the reason that some students will go to college and struggle is because they do not feel needed, like they had their whole lives up to then. She then contributes the fact that the workforce was too crowded at the time, and there was no need for a fresh batch of 18 year old workers, so they get rid of them by sending them to a four year college. Bird was very successful growing up, “at sixteen she became the youngest member of the Vassar Class of 1935 but left after her junior year to marry Edward A.
Menuez” (Durrell 1). She would eventually go on to earn a Bachelor’s degree at Toledo and eventually even a Master’s at Wisconsin. Reading this was very astonishing because reading what she said about college there can only be the assumption that she hated it and dropped out early. However, the opening line of “College is a Waste of Time and Money” is probably an accurate representation of how she felt:
“A great majority of our nine million college students are not in school because they want to be or because they want to learn. They are there because it has become the thing to do or because college is a pleasant place to be; because it’s the only way they can get parents or taxpayers to support them without getting a job they don’t like…”(Bird 1).
It is easily understood now that Bird kept returning to college because she felt a job would not satisfy her and that she needed the support of taxpayers, that would offer her a number of scholarships. This would lead to her someday getting a job that challenged her
abilities. Another large piece of this article is all the “facts” and statistics that Bird presents to help solidify her cause. However, as previously stated, these facts contained fallacy. Bird’s go to appeal was logos. Several of these statistics do not feel believable. For instance, she includes a statistic from the Carnegie Commission that states, “from 5 to 30 percent of students are in college reluctantly. However, a point that must be brought up is that these statistics are fairly outdated, so there is a fair amount of room for error. What she does excel at, nonetheless, is solid character attack on students at parents. At one point she calls out parents saying, “They send their children to college because they are convinced young people benefit financially from those four years of higher education. But if making money is the only goal, college is the dumbest investment you can make” (3). This proves a solid point, in certain cases you will end up paying off your college loans until you are in your 40’s, and the price of college is not getting cheaper. Even though Bird puts several honorable points forward; she ultimately fails. Her biased opinions outweigh any kind of intelligent facts that she brings forward that could help support her core point. Some of these facts even contain a little bit of fallacy. All in all, Bird presents a point that is contemplated between many parties in the modern day, and even though her paper was deemed ineffective it is hard to get a proper view on the subject due to the time difference between when Bird wrote this article and when this response was given.
Rhetorical Précis: In Michelle Adams’s article, “Is College Worth It (2013),” explores the two side of college worthiness. She provided evidence to
Owen and Sawhill maintain that college can positively affect one’s life by “affecting things like job satisfaction, health, marriage, parenting, trust, and social interaction. Additionally, there are social benefits to education, such as reduced crime rates and higher political participation” (Owen and Sawhill 640). By expressing this, Owen and Sawhill are trying to bring to mind the idea that by going to college, you will be an all around better citizen, which definitely plays with emotions because who doesn’t want to be a good citizen. Furthermore, Owen and Sawhill remark on the college decision process. Here, thier general claim is that when choosing a college, it is better to choose a college that will benefit you financially, not just the one you
Linda Lee, the author of “The Case against college”, uses rhetorical devices to sway the readers opinions. Most people can agree college is very important, while others have different opinions. Lee believes not everyone needs a higher education. She is forgetting the reason college is so important and why so many people receive a college education. Everyone should attend college, college graduates make more money, have more job opportunities, become more independent, and have more stability.
Caroline Bird writes the statement in her 1975 article “The Case Against College (Bird 15-18)” that not every high school graduate is ready to attend college. It is 2010 and this article is still valid today. Some of the college students I have been around were not mature enough for obedience school let alone college. A few of the points she makes in the article are: College has never worked its magic for everyone. Does it make you a better person? Are colleges responsible for your children? Are my children living in a country club? I will use some of my own experiences as an example of college life, as well as examples from my daughter’s college experience, along with my nephews as well. All to find the answer to the big question: Are you ready for a college education?
In the article “College is Not a Commodity. Stop treating it like one,” Hunter Rawlings explains how people today believe that college is a commodity, but he argues that it’s the student’s efforts; which gives value to their education. Rawlings states that in recent years college has been looked at in economic terms, lowering its worth to something people must have instead of earn. As a professor Rawlings has learned that the quality of education has nothing to do with the school or the curriculum, but rather the student’s efforts and work ethic. Rawlings explains the idea that the student is in charge of the success of his or her own education, and the professor or school isn’t the main reason why a student performs poorly in a class. Rawlings
American’s education system has been entering crisis mode for a long time. Throughout the past few years, the overwhelming question “Is college needed or worth it?” While it is an opinion, there are facts that back up each answer. Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” mentions that the enlightened must help the unenlightened and further their knowledge. The problem with America today is that high school students are given the option of college and that makes for less enlightened people. While it is possible to learn in the work force or Army, college is a better option. Mary Daly wrote the article “Is It Still Worth Going to College?” which talks about the statistical value of attending. Michelle Adam wrote the article “Is College Worth It?” which mentions the struggle young people are going through to even get into college. Caroline Bird wrote the chapter “Where College Fails Us” in her book The Case Against College where she
The author Charles Murray says there are too many people going to college without really saying it. The essay is written in a way that his audience will understand by the time they finish reading that he has many valid points. He Persuades his readers with facts and counters arguments to false stereotypes involving college and success. By questioning whether college is for everyone makes "you" the reader want to rethink if your time spent in college was really worth it in the end.
The right and privilege to higher education in today’s society teeters like the scales of justice. In reading Andrew Delbanco’s, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, it is apparent that Delbanco believes that the main role of college is to accommodate that needs of all students in providing opportunities to discover individual passions and dreams while furthering and enhancing the economic strength of the nation. Additionally, Delbanco also views college as more than just a time to prepare for a job in the future but a way in which students and young adults can prepare for their future lives so they are meaningful and purposeful. Even more important is the role that college will play in helping and guiding students to learn how to accept alternate point of views and the importance that differing views play in a democratic society. With that said, the issue is not the importance that higher education plays in society, but exactly who should pay the costly price tag of higher education is a raging debate in all social classes, cultures, socioeconomic groups and races.
I am a college student myself and there were only two things in the whole article that I was in agreement with. One was that colleges try to market themselves. The other was her paragraph on how Americans are looking less and less for great paying jobs and are looking more for job that they like doing. This unfortunately is also a contradiction to her piece of writing, because college prepares, and helps you get a job that you will enjoy. Furthermore, the author’s main ideas were not well thought out or well supported. An example of this might be her money investment idea. She implies that if an eighteen year old invested his/hers college tuition money in a bank, and kept it there till he/she was sixty-four, they would be twice as rich as those who go to school, graduate and work in their field of study. What she fails to mention is that while their money is gathering interest, it can not be touched till their sixty-four, and in the mean time they have to be making a living in another job which they probably hate doing. Overall, Bird’s attempt to pursue her readers that college is a waste of time did not work on me.
Throughout the article, Pharinet hits us with intense emotion filled sentences that make us question some decisions we may have made. Pharinet claims “Now, college is the place you go when you want to get a good job, or appease your parents, or because you are ‘finding yourself’”(681). This one line is so controversial. As a student looking at this they may think “I am not going to college for my parents!” or “I have already found myself, what is this author trying to indicate about me?”
The argument about if college is worth it or not has been one of the biggest arguments throughout the media for decades. Students suffer a lot from the debts that they get from college and also the amount of studying that they do in college and when they graduate they ask themselves “is graduation from college really worth all the money that we paid and all the work that we have done?”
Bird, Caroline. "College is a Waste of Time and Money." The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Expository Prose. 9th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson et. al. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996. 481-490.
Imagine telling a student who just graduated from college that you have wasted four years of hard, stressful and even worse, expensive work. Unfortunately, in this cynical society today, the world isn’t just full of competitors, but it’s full of greedy money-grabbing businesses. The worst businesses aren’t manufacturing or electric companies, but colleges and universities. In Caroline Bird’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money,” she examines how college has been viewed for so long as the best place to send high school grads no matter whether they actually want to go or not. She adds that students don’t realize how much college costs and are wasting their parents time and money, which is especially a horrible thing to waste. Now that the economy is better since September 11th and states have been stabilizing their budget debts, it doesn’t make sense that tuition prices higher than ever for college students.
Murray puts together strong support with keen counterarguments that make his arguments seem reasonable to the audience as well as me. The author is able to cohesively pull together his different main ideas and use them to bring across his main purpose which was to explain why he says too many people are going to college. All in all, Murray does an outstanding job persuading the audience and backing the idea that college is worth the price, but only to those who truly belong
There are people who love the idea of furthering their education, and becoming familiar and eventually experts in the field of their interest. It’s no longer just a place of learning, but it’s become a transition phase from high school to the real world. Bird puts this fact into a negative light, making it seem as though 18 year olds are gathered up and taken out of the real world for a few years before we’re finally let loose. This can be viewed negatively, but this time is necessary for a majority of young adults. They need time to figure themselves out and gradually build up to living on their own with all the responsibilities that come with being an