Gail O. Mellow is the president of LaGuardia Community College. In her article, The Biggest Misconceptions about Today’s College Students, she argues that there are misguided judgments present about the ‘typical’ college undergraduate. Mellow, writes this to inform the reader about the challenges college students, mainly ones at a junior college, have maintaining structure between their personal and academic lives. She adopts a firm, formal, and assertive tone for different groups of people; likely, financial trustees that could also be her fellow colleagues, any member of a staff of a higher learning institution in general, and even general taxpayers. She supports her claims about financial and academic obstacles students have by further explaining …show more content…
These details and numbers help reason that public and private money should be used “where more and more students are educated.”
Additionally, Mellow also makes claims to pathos. She offers plenty of sentiments and situations that students are obligated to outside of their studies. She personally takes note of the fact that many of her students “start their days by taking their child to daycare on the bus … take the subway to college … ride a different bus to their job ... another bus to pick up their child … a final bus to go home.” On top of that, “...they still need to cook... help their child with homework … and complete their own college coursework." She will likely influence her audience to have empathy towards low-income college students who are responsible for different living expenses that may consequently hinder their education, and even heighten the likelihood of them having to dropout. With that
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For instance, you’ll notice she opens the article stating a theoretic perspective i.e. "...the typical college student...spending each day moving among classes, parties and extracurricular activities.” and proclaims that rather, only a very small pool of students actually do. Moreover, towards the end of the article she further alludes to her use of ethos by reinforcing that “correcting society's perception of who attends college in the United States is the first step toward helping these hard-working and ambitious students, eager to make a better life for themselves and their
Rose places great blame on the professors who assume that these students are culturally prepared to address, and analyze, ideas and concepts that they have never even heard of before. Students, who come from different cultures and backgrounds, are not prepared (especially on their own) to give up everything that have spent the past eight-teen years believing in, in order to write the prefect college essay.
What those student did actually changed the policy and made it easier for families to afford college without heavy loans. This showed others that activists can make a difference, something she presses on in this
Bruni begins by describing the golden promise of college as it appeared for baby boomers. In that time getting into college and completing a degree was enough to be successful. He acknowledges that this idealized vision of college may be inaccurate, however, he asserts that the issue is far more “complicated” than it once was. Bruni makes use of a recent (2012) debate over student loan interest rates in the U.S. to explore the issues surrounding college education today. While rising student debt is certainly part of the problem he suggests that the issue extends beyond that. College is now a “luxury item with newly uncertain returns” (Bruni). While rising costs make college a luxury item that not everyone will be able to afford, even those who can and do manage to go to college are not guaranteed success.
The essay “How Not to Get Into College” and the poem “Somnambulist” portray a similar message that people become unhappy and lose sight of their own values when the institutional world creates a stigma that forces them to over-work themselves. Alfie Kohn in “How Not to Get Into College” believes that students are already overworking themselves at such an early stage in their lives, and the result of this, is feeling unfulfilled. He believes that “what few realized was that the process wouldn’t end once they finally got into college. The straining toward future, this poisonous assumption that the value of everything is solely a function of its contribution to something that may come later – it would start all over again in September of their first year away from home” (Kohn 1). He proves
For example, both Soma and Dontay both struggled with their grades within the first semester due to lack of support, which is not exactly surprising due to the statistics the documentary discussed such as 90% of lower-income students dropping out and only 21% of lower-income students will actually transfer from a community college. With lack of extra finances and support from families it is of no surprise that these two students struggled, though not all of the students struggled. Cecilia and Jess both graduated and found jobs, Cecilia even when back to school for her Masters, both ladies completing college and remaining successful once they
The author, Julia Brookshire Everett commenced the article, “Public Community Colleges: Creating Access and Opportunities for First Generation College Students”, by first characterizing first- generation college students and also expounding on the difficulties first-generation students encountered when acquiring post-secondary degrees. According to Everett (2015), the term ‘first- generation college student’ was first coined in the 1960s in order to regulate student eligibility for federally financed programs to aid students from low-income households.
Coming to college as an adult, we have many expectations and preconceptions of what college will or will not be. The expectations we have can influence our college life for the better or the worse. My experience since starting college has been an interesting one. People have misconceptions about college because they do not know what to expect. After doing some research, I have concluded that there are three major factors that are often misunderstood about college life. The first is the financial aspect of college. Second, is the relationship between the professors and students. Third is time management. These three factors play an important role in why people are afraid to go down the path to college.
Students entering college for the first time become concerned with their college life. The students are on their own once they enter college. There are no parents or guardians telling them when to do homework, when to go to bed, or how to eat healthy. These students are now responsible for how they are going to succeed in school and meet their own needs. From the beginning, these students wonder what their experience is going to be like and are they going to handle the demands of college?
Most first generation college students are significantly older than the average, approximately 24 year of age (Pascarella et. al 2004). The surrounding low-income environments that many of these students are raised around can explain this late age. This financial pressure can also explain another category of first generation students, preparation (Chen & Carroll, 2005). These students are often less prepared to enter the college life. They have not been exposed to the necessary preparation needed to succeed on college admissions tests and furthermore don’t meet the performance requirements that universities and institutions require. Analyzing the prefaces that surround the environment of first generation college students aids in understanding current problems faced in college as well as assist in proposing solutions for this subset of
The biggest question or dispute regarding the cost of higher education is finding the appropriate monetary and economical equation to determine the percentage of personal and public responsibility. The above debate has been in question since the 1800’s when Thomas Jefferson stated; "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness ”. Those important words that called attention to the importance of having an educated citizenry in order to preserve democracy are until this day, words by which legislator...
In their book Paying for the Party, Armstrong and Hamilton discuss how universities take class differences and class projects of distinct women to define what will be their college experience. In their book, Armstrong and Hamilton define class projects as individual and class characteristics that defines a person’s agenda and class- based orientation. Hence, people with similar class projects, not only shared the same financial and cultural resources, but also the same expectations toward school. (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). As a result, Armstrong and Hamilton claims that students with similar class projects end up becoming a collective constituency and a representative group for the university, whom in turn must take their interests to form a college pathway for them. Therefore, a college pathway for Armstrong and Hamilton refers to how universities are able to take successfully the interests, class characteristics and expectations of students to mold within the organizational and architecture context of the school. In a way, each college pathway is built not only to represent, but also to provision and guide the different types of students in a college.
A college education has become the expectation for most youth in the United States. Children need a college education to succeed in the global economy. Unfortunately for the majority of Americans the price of an education has become the equivalent to a small house. The steep tuition of a college education has made it an intimidating financial hurdle for middle class families. In 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a private university was $20,566 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was $28,500 for an increase of 38.6%. Similarly in public universities there has been an increase in tuition: in the 1986-1987 school year the average tuition at a public university was $8,454 (adjusted to 2011 dollars) while in 2011 the average cost was actually $20,770 for an increase of 145.7%. Most families who are able to save for college try to do so, therefore their children are not left with large amounts of debt due to loans. Nevertheless, families are only able to save on average around $10,000, which is not enough to pay for a full educ...
In Caroline Bird’s “College is A Waste of Time and Money”, it’s argued that there are many college students who would be better off if they were to begin working after high school graduation. Colleges and universities can no longer ensure that one will go on to get a better job, getting paid more than they would have without a higher education. However, high school seniors still stress about where they will be attending college, how they’re going to pay for it and what they’re going to study for the next four years. Bird points out how college has changed over the past few decades and how, in turn, it has set many young adults up for disappointment, if nothing else.
Public colleges must be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend. If colleges lack to provide this to students, it can affect dropouts, a student’s ability focus, and cause stress. The problem of lack of funding is that colleges have insufficient funds. Therefore, the best possible solution for the problem of lack of funding would be increasing and collecting more funds from state taxes. Collecting funds from the state’s taxes is an effective solution because students get more academic support programs, which decreases dropouts.
O’Dubhslainé, A. 2006. The White Paper On Education: A Failure To Invest. Student Economic Review. 20 p 115