Tom Nichols Misrepresented Higher Education
Higher Education is important in today’s society. Tom Nichols, a US naval War College Professor of National Security affair, constructed a statement about students in the college career and how they no longer care about their education. Still, Nichols uses logical fallacies like false analogies and stereotypes that causes Nichols to lose his credibility. Making the argument not convincing at all. Chapter 3 (Higher Education The Customer Is Always Right) of his book Death of Expertise, throughout his chapter he makes some logical fallacies, they are college students don’t belong in actual college, parents are ruining a generation of children, colleges don’t demand adequate work anymore, and judging
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the professor. On the other hand, Nichols does make a good rhetorical strategy about grade inflation. Students in college have been told that college is the place to be. Many students today are moving to college and frankly don’t belong in that location. Using emotional appeal, does he apply it effectively? No, Nichols argues about attendance and tuition being the lone ground for college diplomas instead of teaching. In high school, they tell students that everyone must go to college and to go to the big schools. Nichols writes “Young people who might have done better in a trade sign up for college without a lot of thought given to how to graduate, or what they'll do when it all ends. Four years turns into five, and increased six or more” (74). He is saying that not everyone has to go to a five-star college with every perk like free laundry and air conditioning in the school. He also uses emotional appeal to further his argument when he discusses education. For these readers its emotional appealing because of “intellectual junk food, with very little adult supervision” (74). Nichols has been using his beliefs about certain things to describe college not being for everyone. Grade inflation in America has come to the stage where students have been led astray. Even though Nichols doesn't talk about it right away in his 3rd chapter, he makes out a good task of handing over resources to support the grade inflation argument through.
It’s a rhetorical strategy because of the resources he presents in his book. Nichols says, “A study of two hundred colleges and universities up through 2009 found that A was the most commonly given grade, an increase of nearly 30 percent since 1960 and over 10 percent just since 1998. Grades in the A and B range together now account for more than 80 percent of all grades in all subjects, a trend that continues unabated (17)” (94-95). This was a study that has been done and updated for a long time, it shows that grades inflation could be a bad thing. Therefore, Nichols looked at everyone and not just one student. It likewise proves that it’s all colleges and not a single specific group. If he would have showed a person’s opinion, then he would have received a false argument to work. However, he does have a study that has been updated more than once and shows a group of colleges/ university’s his argument is right because it’s a proven fact. Grades in higher education determine on the teacher and the quality of …show more content…
work. The grades that are required by the school simply don’t demand adequate work for the students to learn properly. This argument is ineffective because Nichols made a poor generalization. Nichols states, “Problems come when all the courses start to look like gut courses” (90). He explains what the “gut courses” are and he is using his own experience and others. Nichols writes, “… their numbers, at least by my subjective judgment, are growing. No field is immune, and a look through the offerings of many programs around the country- as well as a compilation of the grades given in the- suggests that what were once isolated professorial vices are now common departmental habits” (90). He is explaining the “gut courses” as if the class was one of his and he doesn’t care about the other “gut courses”. He is using his own opinion and not facts. Even though scores are a big role of school, sometimes the school needs feedback to know more about what the students want and how the teacher or professor really does his teaching. All students evaluate the professor or the class like they’re “reviewing a movie or commenting on a pair of shoes…” (96).
Still miss representing students what Nichols says is a logical fallacy because he is making the assumption that all students do this. I think it’s ineffective considering he uses generalizations stating most teachers, most students are just reviewing the class as if it was a specialty. Not all of us are even reviewing a class, usually you have to be a professional or the class will ask to have your opinion of that class. When the college asks for your opinion, sometimes students don’t really care and put down what they might think the class was how they really felt about it. Not every student loves every subject they might be taking. Nichols also states “Still, there’s something wrong with a system that asks a student how much they liked their education. College isn’t a restaurant” (97). Nichols is misrepresenting the school system, this is called a straw man. He is saying it’s like a restaurant and all the school system does all day is serving the students things they may like or don’t care for. That’s is not what the school system is trying to do, all they want is the students' feedback to see how they can improve the school. Improving the schools by reviews can sometimes move the parents if the parent thinks the school is right for their
child. Nichols uses a major false inductive reasoning to say they're “helicopter parenting” was ruining a generation of children. (79) It is ineffective because he uses strategic quotation from other sources that are opinionated and illustrates his own options as well. A former dean of Stanford wrote a book about these parents because of the problems she had with the first-year students. This was her first-year experience and was also her own opinion. The evidence she has isn’t really sufficient. Another person Nichols quotes are “A junior high school teacher in Maryland captured the essence of this problem two decades later in a 2014 article she published in the Washington Post after she decided to quit her profession” (78). This quote also doesn’t run because of the representative evidence. It’s not including everyone, including the whole student population. Its only concluding junior higher and not actual college students. Even though the trouble with a parent might be difficult why would you place it in an article. All parents are different in a manner they might think is right in the universe. In evidence Nichols might not make some good points, but he at least makes one. In conclusion of all of Nichols arguments students are the next generation of experts, but he is saying experts should be more respected. Nichols is trying to tell us that it all depends on other personal experience or our own. In today’s society going to college is one of many experiences people take. A lot of time jobs require us to go to college and get that degree. But sometimes the college can be too expensive and many students or even adults can’t pay for it. Thus, there are so many different ways to interpret college. Maybe we should have a better understanding of the actual college itself. Work Cited Nichols, Tom. The Death of Expertise: The campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. Oxford University Press 2017.
In the article “America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree” by Marty Nemko, the author argues several different views on why higher education may be very overestimated. For starters, the author shares his opinion more than anything else due to him being a career counselor. The purpose of this essay is to explain to the readers that most people start off with the idea of living the American Dream. Which is practically going to college to have a better life and career. But over the time the idea of working very hard for a Bachelor’s degree has become very dimmed. Furthermore, for some people, when they think of the American Dream they think of hope for bettering themselves and also helping their families. Unlike the author, Nemko feels that even the thought of trying to pursue to get a bachelor’s degree is overrated. The audience of this passage would most likely be teenagers going into college and parents. Nemko states that “Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more
In Frank Bruni’s New York Time’s article, “The Imperiled Promise of College,” he argues that college is no longer a guarantee of success because students are not being properly motivated and guided into the programs that will provide them with jobs.
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.
The author states that when he was a kid, he was very pleased to get a B grade and now students see those grades as mediocre to say the least. When he attended Tufts in late 1960s, a “B” in certain courses was something that he could dream about. Primack states that GPA’s across the nation have risen since the 1960’s. He believes that this issue could be due to teachers not wanting to give out bad grades in fear that students will not want to take their classes. He uses Harvard University as a prime example of a college guilty of grade inflation. “About 15 percent of Harvard Students got a B-plus or better in 1950. In 2007, more than half of all Harvard grades were in the A range.” One of the questions being proposed by him is could the grade inflation be due simply to the fact that students are getting better? Primack simply refutes this argument by stating, “Privately, many faculty members and administrators say colleges are unwilling to challenge and possibly offend students and their hovering tuition paying parents with some tough grade love.” The writer claims that “grade inflation hides laziness on the part of the students, and as long as it exists, even faculty who want to do a good job grading don’t feel they can.” The statement is based on the belief that grade inflation is the result of fearful and “scared” teachers but does not have any real evidence to back it. If in fact laziness is the problem being covered up by grade inflation, the work force could be affected badly in the future. Phil Primack seems to be addressing an audience of teachers and some students across the country. He repeatedly talks about grade inflation being on the rise and being a problem. He gives good examples that without a doubt prove that grades have in fact risen since 1960. Primack calls on the audience to act and to change the way they grade in the
Charles Murray argues in his paper, Are Too Many People Going to College?, whether or not students should go to college and if the students going to college are going for the right reasons. He believes people should head off to college to grow and become "capable and cultivated human beings" (Tyler, 2012). He also argues that these students are being geared toward a specific job in comparison to the liberal education that these individuals have received prior to attending college. Murray states that “everyone should have a liberal education rather than go to college” (Murray, 2008). Murray argues that students should know their skills and limitations before picking a job so one will be successful in that job. I agree with Murray because everyone
Most students do care about their grades and want to succeed, so they may go into argue their grades. As shown in examples though, parents become very upset with their kids if they do not achieve up to their high class standards. A very good point is made by Shepard. Not all kids are good enough to receive A's. Parents need to be satisfied with a B because that is in the upper part of the college usually. Obtaining an A or A plus should be almost a honor. Shepard grabs the attention of me and other people by discussing how getting a B should be relieving still, even if it isn't
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
I think that part of this problem is that students go to school because it is what is expected of a high school graduate. Very few high school graduates attend college because they want to get an education and know what they want to major in. Edmundson does bring up a valid point when he describes giving his students their course evaluations. He believes that the evaluations are an example of how the students are consumers and whatever the students say, the professors would then change for them. The evaluations show how they are an example of consumerist society because when you buy something (at a restaurant or store) upon completion of your purchase you are asked to evaluate the service and depending on what you comment on the card, the company will take your comments into consideration and either fix the problem or try to change their service to make the next customer’s experience better. In Edmundson’s opinion, having
It should not be a surprise that many people believe that a college degree is a necessity in today’s world. We are taught to believe this at a young age. The average citizen will not question this statement due to how competitive the job market has become, yet does graduating college guarantee more success down the road? Peter Brooks is a scholar at Princeton University and publisher of an essay that questions the value of college. He obviously agrees that college can help securing a job for the future, but questions the humanities about the education. He uses other published works, the pursuit of freedom, and draws on universal arguments that pull in the reader to assume the rest of his essay has valid reasons.
In recent years, many have debated whether or not a college education is a necessary requirement to succeed in the field of a persons’ choice and become an outstanding person in society. On one hand, some say college is very important because one must contribute to society. The essay Three Reasons College Still Matters by Andrew Delbanco shows three main reasons that students should receive their bachelor’s degree. On the other hand, many question the point of wasting millions of dollars on four years or maybe more to fight for highly competitive jobs that one might not get. Louis Menand wrote an article based on education titled Re-Imagining Liberal Education. This article challenges the main thought many americans have after receiving a secondary education. Louis Menand better illustrates the reasons why a student should rethink receiving a post secondary education better than Andrew Delbanco’s three reasons to continue a person’s education.
In this article Nemko is illuminating the issues that our modern society is facing involving higher education. Students are starting off college with bare minimum requirements for next level learning and feeling disappointed when they are not succeeding in their courses. The author acknowledges that the courses being taken by students are sometimes not beneficial to life after college. Nemko states, “A 2006 study supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that 50 percent of college seniors scored below ‘proficient’ levels on a test that required them to do such basic tasks…”(525). Students are specializing in areas of learning to in turn be denied to working in that field and stuck with unnecessary skills. “Many college graduates are forced to take some very nonprofessional positions, such as driving a truck or tending bar”( ...
...ing from 18 and older and an online survey in order to determine what people felt about college education. At the end of the survey they realize that a majority of the people felt that college education is worth their investment and a few felt it was not worth but rather costly, due to the debt they had to pay after their college degree. The article also emphasized that it is high time the government finds ways and means to cut the cost of college tuition so that people can changed their minds of not continuing with their education. The source contributes to my essay in a way that it gives the readers the idea to why people may or may not value college education. The information in the article is accurate and reliable because pew research center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
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?”
Former professor of geophysics, Stuart Rojstaczer, in his informative op-ed piece, “Grade Inflation Gone Wild,” featured in “Christian Science Monitior(2009),” investigates grade inflation among universities today. Rojstaczer’s purpose is to inform and educate universities on the inflation of grades, and how an A has become the average grade among those schools. He adopts a dismissive tone when generalizing and addressing the students on their behaviors and actions. Rojstaczer found over 80 universities with data on they’re grades, using this he was able to better understand the inflation and also analyze possible solutions. His logos based writing portrays a negative connotation on todays students and their ability to achieve within the classroom. There is no hiding that the standard for grades has been on the rise sense the 1960’s, and is now at an average GPA of a 3.0, but rojstaczer may have lost his audience with his arrogant approach.
One of the issues, which Boyer points out , is that teachers and students have different expectations from college education. She says that the teachers are mainly concerned about students’ comprehension of the material, their attendance and attention while students’ hopes are to get good grades and to be well prepared for exams. It seems that the system of grading pushes students to not care too much about what is being taught from an understanding perspective, but only promotes more concern about grades instead. Some students don't really pay attention unless the instructor mentions an exam or something that will be graded. Furthermore, be...