LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE
PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE
January 2012
Dr. John F. Schunk, Editor
“Resolved: The costs of a college education outweigh the benefits.”
PRO
P01. COSTS OF COLLEGE EDUCATION HAVE SKYROCKETED
P02. STUDENT DEBT IS WAY TOO HIGH
P03. STUDENT DEBT DEFAULT RATE IS WAY TOO HIGH
P04. DEBT CRIPPLES STUDENTS’ ECONOMIC FUTURE
P05. COLLEGE DEGREE DOESN’T GUARANTEE EMPLOYMENT
P06. HIGHER EARNINGS BENEFIT IS EXAGGERATED
P07. COLLEGE DEGREE NOT NECESSARY FOR EMPLOYMENT
P08. NON-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS ARE MINIMAL
P09. COSTS OF COLLEGE OUTWEIGH BENEFITS
CON
C01. U.S. COLLEGE EDUCATION IS NOT OVERPRICED
C02. STUDENT DEBT PROBLEM IS EXAGGERATED
C03. DEBT REPAYMENT TERMS ARE BEING EASED
C04. LOW-COST OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE
C05. COLLEGE IMPROVES EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
C06. COLLEGE IMPROVES LIFETIME EARNINGS
C07. COLLEGE HAS MANY NON-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
C08. COLLEGE EDUCATION IS VITAL TO THE NATION
C09. BENEFITS OF COLLEGE ARE WORTH THE COSTS
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SK/P01. COSTS OF COLLEGE EDUCATION HAVE SKYROCKETED
1. COLLEGE TUITION AND FEES HAVE SKYROCKETED
SK/P01.01) Editorial, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, October 27, 2011, p. B2, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The College Board's latest Annual Survey of Colleges - also released this week - shows that average in-state tuition and fees at four-year public colleges increased 8.3 percent over the past year. In 10 years, tuition at public four-year universities has more than doubled. At the average private four-year institution, tuition, room and board, books, transportation and other expenses total $42,224 a year. That's about equal to the declining median family income.
SK/P01.02) Stacy Teicher Khadaroo, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, February 17, 2010, pNA, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. For more than 20 years, the costs of college have risen even more than those of healthcare. This academic year, the average price for public, four-year university tuition and fees is $7,020, up 6.5 percent from last year, according to the College Board in New York.
2. COSTS HAVE RISEN FASTER THAN INFLATION
SK/P01.03) Howard Freedman [President, Financial Aid Consulting], DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION, August 4, 2011, p. 23, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. As the Consumer Price Index increases each year, it has been far from the 5 percent annual increases in college costs that have prevailed over the same periods. For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that from 2000 to 2010 the annual inflation rate ranged from -0.4 percent to 1.6 percent.
SK/P01.04) Editorial, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, October 27, 2011, p. B2, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The new [College Board] report reflects a long-term trend. Since 1985, college costs have risen more than 450 percent, which is about 4.5 times the rate of inflation.
SK/P01.05) John Hechinger & Janet Lorin, THE HOUSTON CHRONCLE, October 27, 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Tuition and fees at public universities soared 8.3 percent this year, twice the rate of inflation, to an average $8,244, a College Board report found. Nonprofit private college costs rose 4.5 percent to $28,500.
3. COSTS HAVE RISEN MORE THAN INCOMES HAVE RISEN
SK/P01.06) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, September 4, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Mark Kantrowitz, an author who publishes the FinAid and Fastweb financial aid sites and has testified before Congress, agreed the trends are troubling. College costs not only are outstripping income gains, they are increasing faster than some of the most basic aid programs, including the PELL program that targets grants to low-income students, Kantrowitz said.
SK/P01.07) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, September 4, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "People's incomes haven't been increasing at the rate tuition is increasing, so college is becoming more unaffordable. The cost is increasing faster than family income and starting salaries for graduates," Kantrowitz [author of FinAid and Fastweb financial aid sites] said. That means it will be harder for graduates to repay student loans, which the Institute for College Access and Affordability estimates increased from an average of $16,809 per graduate in Pennsylvania in 2001 to $27,066 in 2009.
4. COSTS ARE DENYING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR COLLEGE
SK/P01.08) RADICAL TEACHER, Spring 2009, p. 77, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education report shows that the rising cost of college, especially during the current financial crisis, will put higher education out of the reach of most Americans. The report found that "college tuition and fees increased 439 percent from 1982 to 2007 while median family income rose only 147 percent (The New York Times, December 3, 2008).
SK/P01.09) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Indeed, the general public is fairly shouting its concern about college costs in a companion survey of 2,142 Americans, ages 18 and older, by the Pew Research Center. Three-quarters of those polled said college was out of reach for most people. Twenty-five years ago, six in 10 Americans felt that way, according to a survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The squeeze is real. College costs have been on the rise, increasing 50 percent over the last decade, Mr. Shi said. By contrast, family incomes actually fell between 2000 and 2009. Ask young adults why they're not enrolled in college or don't have a bachelor's degree, and the overwhelming response in the Pew survey: money.
SK/P01.10) Editorial, THE BLADE (Toledo, OH), April 25, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. But a new Associated Press-Viacom poll of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 concludes that three-fourths of the young adults in the survey who bypassed higher education cited cost as a reason.
SK/P02. STUDENT DEBT IS WAY TOO HIGH
1. STUDENT DEBT HAS SKYROCKETED
SK/P02.01) Lori Sturdevant, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), November 27, 2011, p. 1OP, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. For a couple of decades, the cost of higher education has been shifting from taxpayers to students and their families, and from grants to loans. The recession is accelerating that trend. Student-loan debt has been the fastest-growing type of personal debt in the country since 2008, jumping in aggregate from $440 billion to $550 billion in less than three years. At that pace, it will exceed total U.S. credit card debt in a few years.
SK/P02.02) Brad Bumsted, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, March 19, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The average student debt across the country was $24,000 in 2009 at public and private not-for-profit universities, according to a study by the Project on Student Debt, which is sponsored by the Institute for College Access and Success in Washington. Debt increased 6 percent from the previous year.
SK/P02.03) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. College finance website calculates college students are taking on debt at a rate of about $2,854 per second so that they chase dreams of a earning degree, even as economists worry that those dreams could trigger a new national financial nightmare. Tumbling family incomes and college tuition spikes that have outpaced inflation for 30 years will boost student debt to $1 trillion by year's end, according to Federal Reserve reports.
SK/P02.04) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, November 3, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "Student debt continues to rise, but debt levels vary tremendously from school to school and state to state," report author Matthew Reed said. In Utah, which had the lowest debt levels, the 2010 debt averaged $15,509. In New Hampshire, which topped the list, graduate debt averaged $31,048 in 2010.
SK/P02.05) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 3, 2011, p. A20, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Students who graduated from college in 2010 with student loans owed an average of $25,250, up 5 percent from the previous year, according to a report scheduled for release Thursday.
2. STUDENT DEBT IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH
SK/P02.06) Tim Grant, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, November 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The rising cost of a college education and the failure of federal grants to keep pace has led to average student loan debt hitting an all-time high. The class of 2010 not only faced one of the toughest job markets in recent memory, but an estimated two-thirds of them are saddled with an average student loan burden of $25,250. Average student debt for the class of 2009 was $24,000.
SK/P02.07) Editorial, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, November 2, 2011, p. A13, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reported last month that the debt owed by U.S. college students has topped $1 trillion for the first time. That figure doesn't even take into account the loans owned by parents on behalf of students.
SK/P02.08) THE ECONOMIST (US), October 29, 2011, p. 83(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The size of student debt is vast, and lots of borrowers are struggling. More than 10 million students took out loans for the latest academic year, according to a report issued on October 26th by the College Board, a consortium of academic institutions. Almost a third of students graduating from college, and 69% of the ones dropping out, hold debt tied to their education. The total amount of debt is staggering. The New York Federal Reserve Bank puts it at $550 billion, but includes a footnote in the "technical notes" section suggesting this may be an underestimate. Sallie Mae, the school-loan equivalent of the housing industry's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reckons there are $757 billion-worth of outstanding loans. A bank heavily involved in the area says there is at least another $111 billion in purely private loans, and with new lending estimated in excess of $112 billion for this year alone, the total amount outstanding will surpass $1 trillion in the not-so-distant future.
3. IT HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE OCCUPY WALL STREET MOVEMENT
SK/P02.09) James Surowiecki, THE NEW YORKER, November 21, 2011, p. 50, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The protesters at Occupy Wall Street may not have put forth an explicit set of demands yet, but there is one thing that they all agree on: student debt is too damn high. Since the late nineteen-seventies, annual costs at four-year colleges have risen three times as fast as inflation, and, with savings rates dropping and state aid to colleges being cut, students have been forced to take on ever more debt in order to pay for school. The past decade has seen a student-loan binge, so that today Americans owe well over six hundred billion dollars in college debt. That's a burden that's hard to carry at a time when more than two million college graduates are unemployed and millions more are underemployed.
SK/P02.10) John Hechinger & Janet Lorin, THE HOUSTON CHRONCLE, October 27, 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Surging tuition has left the average college graduate with more than $20,000 in loans, according to the College Board. Borrowers struggling to repay student loans and unable to find jobs are joining protesters at Occupy Wall Street tent cities around the country. Federal and private college loans - approaching $1 trillion - surpassed credit-card debt in June 2010 for the first time, according to Mark Kantrowitz of , a college grant and loan website.
SK/P03. STUDENT DEBT DEFAULT RATE IS WAY TOO HIGH
1. DEFAULT ON STUDENT DEBT HAS SKYROCKETED
SK/P03.01) Justin Pope, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, September 13, 2011, p. A9, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The number of borrowers defaulting on federal student loans has jumped sharply, the latest indication that rising college tuition costs, low graduation rates and poor job prospects are getting more and more students over their heads in debt. The national two-year cohort default rate rose to 8.8 percent last year, from 7 percent in fiscal 2008, according to figures released Monday by the Department of Education.
SK/P03.02) THE ECONOMIST (US), October 29, 2011, p. 83(US), GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In September the Department of Education reported that in 2009 the default rate, which is defined as non-payment for 270 days, had reached 8.8%. By some estimates delinquency rates, an earlier indicator of stress, for student loans exceed 10%, ten times that for credit cards and car loans.
2. DEFAULT RATES ARE DANGEROUSLY HIGH
SK/P03.03) Brad Bumsted, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, March 19, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "As the number of student borrowers has increased and their cumulative indebtedness has grown, so too has concern about whether the debt levels are manageable," said a study released this week by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a Washington nonprofit. The study of 8.7 million student borrowers found 41 percent were delinquent or in default in 2005.
SK/P03.04) Julie Delcour, TULSA WORLD, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Repayment of student loans is a ticking time bomb. This year, student-loan debt reached $1 trillion, exceeding consumer credit-card debt. As with the mortgage crisis, millions of Americans have been lured by easy money, borrowing themselves into a debt trap. They thought they could afford the bigger house; they thought that they could afford college. Reality didn't live up to expectations. In this economy many borrowers are jobless or underemployed and the default rate on student loans is near 9 percent.
3. DEFAULT DESTROYS STUDENTS’ ECONOMIC FUTURE
SK/P03.05) Sarah Kaufman, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 10, 2010, p. C1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. According to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 percent of loans made to community college students are in default. (The same report found that 25 percent of all government student loans default.) Default on a student loan and face dire consequences, beyond a bad credit record -- which can tarnish hopes of getting a car, an apartment or even a job: Uncle Sam can claim your tax refunds and wages.
4. STUDENT DEFAULT THREATENS NEW ECONOMIC CRISIS FOR U.S.
SK/P03.06) Kristina Dell, TIME, October 31, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Decreasing employment rates and starting salaries for college graduates over the past two years have prompted some analysts to predict that student-loan delinquencies may cause an economic crisis similar to that of subprime mortgages in 2008. US student-loan debt, which surpassed credit-card debt in 2010, may rise to $1 trillion this year.
SK/P04. DEBT CRIPPLES STUDENTS’ ECONOMIC FUTURE
1. STUDENT DEBT STAYS WITH GRADUATES FOREVER
SK/P04.01) Edward Renner [Professor, Honors Program, U. of South Florida], THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, November 18, 2011, p. 13A, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Student loans are the only type of debt that cannot be discharged in a bankruptcy, except under rare and unusual circumstances. With accumulated late-payment fees and interest charges, they are a more toxic financial "product" than the instruments that brought on the mortgage crisis.
SK/P04.02) Julie Delcour, TULSA WORLD, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Student loans are different than other types of debt. While loans can be deferred under certain circumstances, interest continues to accrue. Unlike credit-card debt, student-loan debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. Leave the loans unpaid, and they're like a felony conviction -- they follow you forever.
SK/P04.03) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2011, p. A1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Deanne Loonin, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center, said education debt was not good debt for the low-income borrowers she works with, most of whom are in default. Unlike most other debt, student loans generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, and the government can garnish wages or take tax refunds or Social Security payments to recover the money owed.
2. TODAY’S GRADUATES WILL BE A PERMANENT DEBTOR GENERATION
SK/P04.04) Jill King Greenwood, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Student loan debt in the United States outpaced all other household debt in the past decade, including mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and home equity loans. Pair that with an unemployment rate of about 15 percent for 20- to 24-year-olds and the result is what some fear is becoming a "generation of debtors." "The situation is bad, really bad, and getting worse," said Rich Williams, higher education advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in Washington.
SK/P04.05) Jill King Greenwood, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Today, nearly two-thirds of college students have student loan debt, borrowing an average of $27,000, according to Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of and . Up to 85 percent of college seniors planned to move back in with their parents after graduating in May, according to a poll by Twentysomething Inc., a Philadelphia-based marketing and research firm. The rate has steadily risen from 67 percent in 2006. "I think we're going to ultimately be known as the generation of debtors," said Tony Richardson, a student at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. "Our credit will be defined by how we pay or don't pay our student loans. It's crippling."
SK/P04.06) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "You have people who will be stuck in low-paying jobs burdened with unparalleled student and household debt. I believe we're going to see a generation of debt peonage," said political economist Alan Nassar of Evergreen State University in Washington. Concerns are growing as debt-saddled graduates seek employment in one of the worst job markets for college graduates since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking the group 26 years ago, Nassar said. Loan defaults rose from 7 percent in 2008 to 8.8 percent in 2009, according to the Department of Education.
3. PERMANENT DEBT CRIPPLES STUDENTS’ ECONOMIC FUTURE
SK/P04.07) Debra Erdley, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Nasser [political economist, Evergreen State U.] predicted soaring student debt could force many graduates to forego the dream of home ownership for decades. Home sales are key to a vibrant economy, most economists say. The damage might not stop there. Nasser said the notes from some student loans have been rolled into securitized debt packages and traded -- much like the subprime mortgage debt that imploded at the beginning of the 2008 financial downturn. He said stress on the economy could reveal the weakness of such debt.
SK/P04.08) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2011, p. A1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Some education policy experts say the mounting debt has broad implications for the current generation of students. “If you have a lot of people finishing or leaving school with a lot of debt, their choices may be very different than the generation before them,” said Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access and Success. “Things like buying a home, starting a family, starting a business, saving for their own kids' education may not be options for people who are paying off a lot of student debt.” In some circles, student debt is known as the anti-dowry. As the transition from adolescence to adulthood is being delayed, with young people taking longer to marry, buy a home and have children, large student loans can slow the process further.
SK/P05. COLLEGE DEGREE DOESN’T GUARANTEE EMPLOYMENT
1. COLLEGE GRADUATES HAVE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
SK/P05.01) Kaitlynn Riely, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, November 5, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Student loan debt is projected to top $1 trillion this year. The unemployment rate is 9 percent nationally and it's higher for recent college graduates.
SK/P05.02) Kristina Dell, TIME, October 31, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Higher education, long believed to be the foundation of success, is producing graduates that face unemployment rates that are for some cohorts nearly double what they were only five years ago.
2. MANY GRADUATES ARE WORKING JOBS NOT REQUIRING A DEGREE
SK/P05.03) Editorial, THE DAILY STAR-JOURNAL (Warrensburg, MO), June 20, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Graduates in this economy face a double whammy -- large college debts tied to degrees that do not lead to meaningful work. Many graduates wind up in minimum wage, dead-end jobs, which they could have had without the burden of college loans that can top $20,000 easily. Americans have sold their children on the idea that college is a necessity, but as costs continue to rise, a college education looks less like an avenue to success than a road to financial ruin.
SK/P05.04) Barbara Springs [Bussey Middle School, Garland, TX], THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, March 19, 2011, p. A21, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Given the growing need for skilled labor, some experts have said we can't afford to view a standard four-year college diploma as the default calling card to the middle class. As many young new liberal arts graduates serving lattes at Starbucks can attest these days, it's far from it.
3. LAW SCHOOL GRADUATES FACE BLEAK EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS
SK/P05.05) Alan Scher Zagier, THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, September 2, 2011, p. 6, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The days of top law school graduates having their pick of six-figure jobs at boutique firms - or at least being assured of putting their degrees to use - are over. Post-graduate employment rates are at their lowest levels in 15 years. The typical student leaves school nearly $100,000 in debt. And after several years of recession-driven enrollment gains, applications to law schools nationwide are down nearly 10 percent this year.
SK/P05.06) Alan Scher Zagier, THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, September 2, 2011, p. 6, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The sobering statistics have prompted plenty of soul-searching in the legal academy, with calls for schools to provide more accurate job-placement data as well as efforts by some law schools to admit fewer students to avoid dumping a glut of newly minted J.D.s onto an unforgiving job market. "The sense that one can go to law school and get rich quick, that it is the lottery ticket- those days are well past," said law dean Larry Dessem at the University of Missouri, where first-year fall enrollment is down 11 percent and applications declined nearly 17 percent.
SK/P05.07) Alan Scher Zagier, THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, September 2, 2011, p. 6, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. According to the National Association for Law Placement, only slightly more than two-thirds of spring 2010 graduates had jobs requiring law licenses nine months later - the lowest mark since the industry group starting keeping count. Overall, 87.4 percent of the class of 2010 had any sort of job nine months after graduation, a 15-year low. Those figures include 11 percent working part time and others holding temporary jobs. And the national median salary for new law school graduates declined from $72,000 to $63,000 over the past year.
SK/P06. HIGHER EARNINGS BENEFIT IS EXAGGERATED
1. COLLEGE DEFENDERS OVERSTATE EARNINGS BENEFIT
SK/P06.01) Nick Gillespie, REASON, August-September 2008, p. 13, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "High school dropouts forfeit a million dollars in lifetime earnings compared to their college graduate peers," Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings told an audience at san Jose State University in May. Spellings, and countless others who claim that a bachelor's degree on average brings that much extra moolah to its owner, might want to sign up for a remedial math class. According to an analysis by the legendary money manager--and former chairman of Spellings' own Commission on the Future of Higher Education--Charles Miller, the million-dollar payoff is off by over $700,000. When accounting for ever-rising tuition, likely income growth and inflation, the typical number of years worked, students who do not go on for advanced degrees, and several other factors, getting a B.A. "produces a lifetime earnings differential of only $279,893 for a bachelor's degree versus a high school degree!" (emphasis in original), wrote Miller in an open letter to the College Board, the maker of the SAT and one of the popularizers of the million-dollar factoid.
SK/P06.02) Chris Droessler, TECHNIQUES, April 2010, p. 61, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. “Nice article in The Wall Street Journal that looks at the worth of a college degree. The writer mentioned the old College Board study that showed an $800,000 difference in lifetime earnings of a college graduate vs. a high school graduate. Many agree that the data used to get that difference is based on old numbers and should have never been used to predict the future earnings. In my research I find that many associate degrees can prepare you for better paying jobs than four-year (or more) degrees."
2. MANY GRADUATES DON’T ACHIEVE AVERAGE LEVEL OF PAY
SK/P06.03) Sarah Kaufman, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 10, 2010, p. C1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. This means that, for those with a bachelor's degree, the middle range of earnings was about 53 percent more than for those holding only a high school diploma. But a lot of college graduates fall outside the middle range -- and many stand to make considerably less. "If you major in accounting or engineering, you're pretty likely to get a return on your investment," Vedder [economics professor, Ohio U.] says. "If you're majoring in anthropology or social work or education, the rate on return is going to be a good deal lower, on average.”
SK/P07. COLLEGE DEGREE NOT NECESSARY FOR EMPLOYMENT
1. GOING TO WORK, NOT COLLEGE, IS BETTER FOR MANY
SK/P07.01) Terrie Morgan-Besecker, TIMES LEADER (Wilkes-Barre, PA), August 28, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Vedder [economics professor, Ohio State U.] said he is particularly suspect of the value of college for students who did not perform well in high school. "If you went to a good high school with good academics and got good grades ... the chances of getting a job after graduation that pays more than a job if you did not go to college is good," Vedder said. "For every student that meets those standards, there are probably five or 10 who were in the bottom half of their high school class and for whom college was a struggle. For these people, college is a highly suspect investment," he said.
SK/P07.02) Kenneth D. Richardson [Associate Professor of Psychology, Ursinus College], THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 22, 2009, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. What I find to be more tragic is that we have so many young people who really hate school walking through the motions associated with higher education in a mindless manner and not putting in the effort that it takes to educate themselves. The result of this will be a lot of uneducated people with degrees, which will of course degrade the credibility of the institutions that grant them. One could easily start a small business on what many students throw away on college expenses over four years, and that doesn't include the enormous amounts that they invest in alcohol or other intoxicants.
2. MANY IN HIGH-TECH ARE SUCCESSFUL WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREE
SK/P07.03) Sarah Kaufman, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 10, 2010, p. C1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Dropouts are the toast of the dot-com world. To the non-degreed billionaires' club headed by Microsoft's Bill Gates (Harvard's most famous quitter) and Apple's Steve Jobs (left Oregon's Reed College after a single semester), add: Michael Dell (founder of Dell Computers, University of Texas dropout), Microsoft co-founder and Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen (quit Washington State University) and Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle Systems, gave up on the University of Illinois).
SK/P07.04) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Higher education has taken its lumps recently. Critics often accuse it of failing to give students "real-world" skills that translate to their careers, noting that if a Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates can start a powerhouse company with no degree, why all the fuss about getting a college degree?
3. WORK SKILLS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN COLLEGE DEGREE
SK/P07.05) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. While a plurality of those surveyed maintained that the main purpose of college is to learn specific skills and knowledge for the workplace, a third of college graduates said their current job doesn't require a degree. Asked what it takes to succeed in the work world, respondents ranked a college education below a good work ethic, getting along with others, and skills acquired on the job.
SK/P07.06) Naomi Schaefer Riley [former editor, WALL STREET JOURNAL], THE WASHINGTON POST, June 5, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Executives at U.S. companies routinely complain about the lack of reading, writing and math skills in the recent graduates they hire. Maybe they too will get tired of using higher education as a credentialing system. Maybe it will be easier to recruit if they don't have to be concerned about the overwhelming student debt of their new employees. Employers may decide that there are better ways to get high school students ready for careers.
4. TECHNICAL SCHOOLS ARE A VIABLE ALTERNATIVE FOR MANY
SK/P07.07) Editorial, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, June 6, 2011, p. A11, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Not every student has the time, aptitude or money for state-sponsored or nonprofit colleges. Commercial schools can innovate and keep a close eye on the job market. But these advantages can't obscure the serious concerns about high costs, failure to repay loans backed with federal money, and illusory promises about future jobs. ... It's time to rein in a runaway industry and protect future students.
SK/P07.08) Alan Scher Zagier, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 6, 2010, p. A2, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The notion that a four-year degree is essential for real success is being challenged by a growing number of economists, policy analysts and academics. They say more Americans should consider other options such as technical training or two-year schools, which have been embraced in Europe for decades. As evidence, experts cite rising student debt, stagnant graduation rates and a struggling job market flooded with overqualified degree-holders.
SK/P07.09) Barbara Springs [Bussey Middle School, Garland, TX], THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, March 19, 2011, p. A21, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The Harvard report calls for the United States to look more closely at the vocational and technical training systems in Europe that align classroom and workplace learning. After ninth or 10th grades, between 40 and 70 percent of students opt for a program of apprenticeship and study that virtually guarantees a job upon completion. Employers cover much of the costs and actively lay out the skills and qualifications they want future employees to have. This approach works particularly well in health care and information technology jobs.
SK/P08. NON-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS ARE MINIMAL
1. QUALITY OF U.S. COLLEGES IS OVERSTATED
SK/P08.01) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But perhaps the most troublesome finding from the surveys is this: More than a third of presidents think the industry they lead is heading in the wrong direction. Without a change in course, presidents fear, American higher education's standing around the globe could erode. Although seven in 10 college chief executives rated the American system today as the best or one of the best in the world, barely half predicted that a decade from now the United States would be among the top globally.
2. COLLEGES LACK CLEAR NON-EMPLOYMENT OBJECTIVES
SK/P08.02) Joe Smydo, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, February 9, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. High schools around the nation are focused on the goal of making all students "college-ready." Yet the question of what one should get out of a college education hasn't been definitively answered, and colleges themselves sometimes wrestle with their role. The global, technical, volatile economy has blurred the lines between liberal-arts and career-oriented degree programs.
SK/P08.03) Naomi Schaefer Riley [former editor, WALL STREET JOURNAL], THE WASHINGTON POST, June 5, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Colleges and universities have allowed their value to slip by letting students call this an undergraduate education. There is no compelling understanding among students of why they are there. Studying is not how they spend even the bulk of their waking hours, and their classes seem random at best. They may spend Monday in "19th Century Women's Literature," Tuesday in "Animal Behavior" and Wednesday in "Eastern Philosophy," but these courses may bear little relation to any they took the previous semester or any they will take the next.
3. SOCIETY DOES NOT NEED MORE COLLEGE GRADUATES
SK/P08.04) Malcolm Harris, UTNE READER, September-October 2011, PROQUEST RESEARCH LIBRARY, p. 59. Colleges have benefited from a public discourse that depicts higher education as an unmitigated social good. Since the baby boomers gave birth, the college degree has seemed a panacea for social ills, a metaphor for a special kind of deserved success. We still tell fairy tales about escapes from the ghetto to the classroom or the short path from graduation to lifelong satisfaction, not to mention America’s collective college success story, the G.I. Bill. But these narratives are not inspiring true life modes; they’re advertising copy, and they come complete with loan forms.
SK/P08.05) Lawrence Mishel [President, Economic Policy Institute], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, March 2011, p. A20, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. However, greatly boosting college graduation above its expected growth rate will not materially address either past or future inequalities. It will exacerbate the already deteriorating pay and benefits facing young college graduates and lead to falling wages among all college graduates, especially men. Despite frequent claims, it is simply untrue that we have seen a three decades-long radical increase in employers' demand for four-year college graduates. The widespread (even before the recession) utilization of college students and graduates working as unpaid (many unlawfully so) "interns" is evidence enough--if employers desperately needed these workers, they would pay them. In fact, the trends of the last 10 years contradict this story.
SK/P08.06) Lawrence Mishel [President, Economic Policy Institute], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, March 2011, p. A20, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. A major increase in the supply of college graduates would further erode the wages and benefits new college graduates obtain and drive down the wages of all college graduates, especially among men.
SK/P08.07) Alan Scher Zagier, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 6, 2010, p. A2, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder blames the cultural notion of "credential inflation" for the stream of unqualified students into four-year colleges. His research has found that the number of new jobs requiring college degrees is less than the number of college graduates. Vedder's work also yielded something surprising: The more money that states spend on higher education, the less the economy grows -- the opposite of long-held assumptions.
4. COLLEGE DOESN’T IMPROVE CRITICAL THINKING
SK/P08.08) Joe Smydo, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, February 9, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. About six years ago, a group of researchers contemplated Plato and Socrates and scoured college mission statements to develop a list of the benefits associated with a liberal arts education, said Kathleen Wise, associate director of inquiries at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind. That effort evolved into the Wabash National Study, an effort to track students' development in about a dozen areas -- including critical thinking, leadership and moral reasoning -- from matriculation through their senior years. The study, so far involving more than 17,000 students at 49 institutions, hopes to identify teaching practices that contribute to development of the key qualities. Students are evaluated at the beginning and end of their freshman year and again as seniors. The first group of seniors -- those who entered college in fall 2006 -- will be tested this spring. Tests have shown that the freshmen, as groups, showed little development in the key areas during their first year of college.
SK/P08.09) Virginia Foxx [U.S. Representative], DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION, March 3, 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Recent research by two sociologists shows very little value added to most of higher education. Students in higher ed don't gain the kinds of skills that they need to continue in the work world.
5. COLLEGE DOESN’T IMPROVE EMOTIONAL WELL-BEING
SK/P08.10) Alan Scher Zagier, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 6, 2010, p. A2, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. John Reynolds, a Florida State sociology professor, found that unrealized educational expectations do not lead to depression or other long-term emotional costs. "Rich kids, poor kids, 'A' students, 'C' students -- we really didn't find any lasting impact on not getting the degree," he said.
SK/P08.11) Kenneth D. Richardson [Associate Professor of Psychology, Ursinus College], THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 22, 2009, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. I've seen a lot of young people literally destroyed by the pathologies that have developed in college environments, graduating in worse shape than they were in when they started. Such students degrade my courses with their irresponsible and inconsistent approaches to taking classes, ultimately claiming much more of my time than the diligent ones. Everybody suffers. I am seeing more and more students who will clearly not be ready for the real world after they have graduated.
6. EMPLOYMENT ISSUES OUTWEIGH INTANGIBLE CONCERNS
SK/P08.12) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. It is true that college is not just about jobs or training foot soldiers for American capitalism - it also is a time for personal exploration and to learn what it means to be a good citizen. But in times of economic crisis, such as ours, there is no denying the economic role of college. Self-discovery and democratic ideals are important, but they are no substitute for putting food on the table or supporting a family.
SK/P08.13) Virginia Foxx [U.S. Representative], DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION, March 3, 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. All higher education is vocational education because anyone who's going to college is going to college because they want to get a job, ultimately.
SK/P09. COSTS OF COLLEGE OUTWEIGH BENEFITS
1. COLLEGE FOR ALL IS A MISGUIDED GOAL
SK/P09.01) Barbara Springs [Bussey Middle School, Garland, TX], THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS, March 19, 2011, p. A21, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. A Harvard report released last month says that encouraging college for all actually hurts numerous students by putting them into debt and keeping them from career paths they're more suited for that pay a solid wage. Only 56 percent of those enrolling in a four-year college get a bachelor's degree after six years, and these figures are even worse for minorities, according to the report, "Pathways to Prosperity." "Given these dismal attainment numbers, a narrowly defined college for all goal -- one that does not include a much stronger focus on career-oriented programs that lead to occupational credentials -- seems doomed to fail," the report argues. "College for all might be the mantra, but the hard reality is that fewer than one in three young people achieve that dream."
SK/P09.02) Michelle Singletary, THE WASHINGTON POST, October 30, 2011, p. G1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The conventional wisdom that a college education - and the debt it costs to obtain it - is a guarantee to a good life doesn't always hold true, especially in an economy with high unemployment and many low starting salaries. For decades, parents and prospective college students have been told that school loans are good debt. But this awful advice has helped push many families to assume more debt than they can afford.
2. BENEFITS AREN’T WORTH THE FINANCIAL COSTS
SK/P09.03) Kara McGuire, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), October 30, 2011, p. 5D, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. [Sam Glover, consumer attorney:] "The real issue lying at the heart of the student loan problem is this: Americans have been overpaying for higher education. There's plenty more to education than job training, but it's also true that if we can't pay back our student loans, our education isn't worth what it cost.”
SK/P09.04) Terrie Morgan-Besecker, TIMES LEADER (Wilkes-Barre, PA), August 28, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The reality is that many college graduates find themselves faced with massive debt upon graduation and little income to pay it, said Dr. Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio State University and author of the book, "Going Broke by Degree." Vedder said he's convinced that, for more and more people, college is no longer the right choice. He has come to the conclusion, in part, by witnessing the fate of his own graduates, many of whom are working in fields that do not require a college degree. "The mantra is 'go to college, go to college, go to college,' " Vedder said. "But I think for a significant subsection of the population, college today in an increasingly problematic investment. It is, for some students, probably an investment they should not make."
SK/P09.05) Malcolm Harris, UTNE READER, September-October 2011, PROQUEST RESEARCH LIBRARY, p. 59. If tuition has increased astronomically and the portion of money spent on instruction and student services has fallen, if the (at very least comparative) market value of a degree has dipped, and if most students can no longer afford to enjoy college as a period of intellectual adventure, then at least one more thing is clear: Higher education, for profit or not, has increasingly become a scam.
SK/P09.06) Sarah Kaufman, THE WASHINGTON POST, September 10, 2010, p. C1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The hefty price tag of a college degree has some experts worried that its benefits are fading. "I think it makes less sense for more families than it did five years ago," says Richard Vedder, an economics professor at Ohio University who has been studying education issues. "It's become more and more problematic about whether people should be going to college."
3. MOST AMERICANS AGREE THAT COSTS OUTWEIGH BENEFITS
SK/P09.07) Editorial, THE REGISTER-GUARD (Eugene, OR), May 17, 2011, p. A8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Not long ago most Americans unequivocally embraced the value of a college education. No more. A new report by the Pew Research Center shows Americans are increasingly skeptical about the benefits of a college degree. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed believe the nation's higher education system does not offer a return commensurate with its costs. Seventy-five percent said the average person can no longer afford to go to college.
SK/P09.08) Editorial, THE REGISTER-GUARD (Eugene, OR), May 17, 2011, p. A8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The nation must find ways to make education more affordable and focused on preparing students to succeed in an evolving economy. When only 35 percent of Americans surveyed say college is a good value, profound changes are in order.
SK/P09.09) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 30, 2011, p. A20, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. “Three in four Americans now say that college is too expensive for most people to afford,” Mr. Duncan [U.S. Secretary of Education] said. “That belief is even stronger among young adults -- three-fourths of whom believe that graduates today have more debt than they can manage.”
SK/P09.10) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Among the warning signs, a quarter of college graduates who earn less than $50,000 a year now say their degree was a bad bargain.
SK/C01. U.S. COLLEGE EDUCATION IS NOT OVERPRICED
1. ACCESS TO COLLEGE HAS GREATLY INCREASED
SK/C01.01) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. In little more than one generation, higher education has achieved remarkable gains in widening access. Today, two-thirds of all high school graduates choose to attend college, and even more aspire to attend. These markers of societal commitment should offer unprecedented encouragement to students who hope to enroll.
2. COLLEGES ARE NOT PRICE-GOUGING
SK/C01.02) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The extent of this transformation in the commitment to college education, led largely from within higher education, makes it all the more surprising that in the past decade especially, colleges have been accused of price gouging. The accusation is refutable, but it persists in politicians' rhetoric, perhaps because we live in an era of mass higher education when every congressional district includes a high percentage of families with a direct stake in low-priced access to higher education. The politicians' rhetoric rarely expresses appreciation for how far our society has already come in a short time in widening access.
3. U.S. COLLEGES ARE THE BEST IN THE WORLD
SK/C01.03) Lamar Alexander [U.S. Senator], NEWSWEEK, October 26, 2009, p. 26, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The United States has almost all of the world's best universities. A recent Chinese survey ranks 35 American universities among the top 50, eight among the top 10. Our research universities have been the key to developing the competitive advantages that help Americans produce 25 percent of all the world's wealth. In 2007, 623,805 of the world's brightest students were attracted to American universities.
SK/C01.04) U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, September 1, 2009, pNA, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. But America's universities already are considered the best in the world, accounting for nearly 25 percent of the world's top 400 universities, according to one assessment. And clearly, there are plenty of people capable of earning a bachelor's degree and eager to do so.
SK/C02. STUDENT DEBT PROBLEM IS EXAGGERATED
1. STUDENT DEBT IS NOT EXCESSIVELY HIGH
SK/C02.01) Jill King Greenwood, THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, October 30, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Michael Zigarelli, professor of leadership and strategy at Messiah College in Grantham, Cumberland County, said he thinks the predictions of generations caught in a cycle of debt and default are over-hyped. "The current crop of unemployed and under-employed college grads will eventually find professional positions and begin repaying their obligations, just as their predecessors did who graduated during recession years of the late 1970s and early 1990s," Zigarelli said. "Years from now, their children will attend college, hopefully assuming less debt, but they, too, will eventually take on white-collar jobs and repay their debts, and so on," he said. "It's a system that has worked for generations and I'd fully expect that this will continue, despite the present rhetoric."
SK/C02.02) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2011, p. A1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. According to a College Board report issued last fall, median earnings of bachelor's degree recipients working full time year-round in 2008 were $55,700, or $21,900 more than the median earnings of high school graduates. And their unemployment rate was far lower. So Sandy Baum, a higher education policy analyst and senior fellow at George Washington University, a co-author of the report, said she was not concerned, from a broader perspective, that student debt was growing so fast.
2. UNLIKE CONSUMER DEBT, IT IS AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE
SK/C02.03) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2011, p. A1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. To be sure, many economists and policy experts see student debt as a healthy investment -- unlike high-interest credit card debt, which is simply a burden on consumers' budgets and has been declining in recent years.
SK/C02.04) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, April 12, 2011, p. A1, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Susan Dynarski, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Michigan, said student debt could generally be seen as a sensible investment in a lifetime of higher earnings. “When you think about what's good debt and what's bad debt, student loans fall into the realm of good debt, like mortgages,” Professor Dynarski said. “It's an investment that pays off over the whole life cycle.”
3. FEARS OF A STUDENT DEBT BUBBLE ARE UNFOUNDED
SK/C02.05) James Surowiecki, THE NEW YORKER, November 21, 2011, p. 50, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. There's a big flaw in the bubble argument, though: things may look grim for college graduates, but they're much grimmer for people without a college degree. Though recent college grads are having a hard time finding a job, it's much harder for recent high-school graduates, who have an unemployment rate of nearly twenty-two per cent. And the over-all unemployment rate for college grads is still, at 4.4 per cent, very low. More striking, the college wage premium--how much more a college graduate makes than someone without a degree--is at an all-time high. In fact, the spiralling cost of education has to some degree tracked the rising wage premium; as college has, in relative terms, become more valuable economically, people have become willing to pay more for it.
SK/C03. DEBT REPAYMENT TERMS ARE BEING EASED
1. LOAN FORGIVENESS PLANS ARE AVAILABLE
SK/C03.01) Alistair M. Nevius, JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTANCY, June 2009, p. 78, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Congress has attempted to alleviate this problem by various means, including extending the repayment period for student loans, creating debt forgiveness and debt repayment programs and even providing a tax deduction for the payment of student loan interest. Private-sector employers in high-demand professions have joined in, offering their own student loan repayment plans as a recruitment tool.
SK/C03.02) Alistair M. Nevius, JOURNAL OF ACCOUNTANCY, June 2009, p. 78, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Student loan forgiveness plans fall into three categories. The most important are the federal loan forgiveness provisions connected with the extended loan repayment plans elected by qualifying borrowers who are incapable of paying off their education loans over the typical 10-year period. Second, specialized loan forgiveness and loan repayment programs are available for borrowers who work for certain employers (for example, the Peace Corps, the military, and school districts with a high proportion of low-income or special needs students). Third, hardship rules provide debt relief in extreme cases, such as the borrower's death or disability.
SK/C03.03) Joan Garrett, CHATTANOOGA TIMES-FREE PRESS, August 20, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. But a lack of education about student loans is also contributing to delinquency, officials said. Some students don't know that they can request deferment of their loans in certain cases or be placed on income-based repayment plans, which lower required monthly payments to be in line with an individual's earnings. If they have paid on the loan for more than 25 years, it can be forgiven, she [Pauline Abernathy, vice president of the Institute for College Access and Success] said.
2. PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS EASED REPAYMENT TERMS
SK/C03.04) Editorial, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, October 27, 2011, p. B2, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. On Wednesday, President Obama announced a plan to use his executive powers to allow students to reduce their student-loan debt payments and seek outstanding loan forgiveness at 20 instead of 25 years after graduation.
SK/C03.05) Editorial, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, November 2, 2011, p. A13, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Mr. Obama reached out to the students dragged down by debt last week. For six months, beginning in January, borrowers with both federal loans and federally backed loans can consolidate them at a slightly lower interest rate.
SK/C03.06) Kara McGuire, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), October 30, 2011, p. 5D, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. President Obama's plan to ease student debt by capping payments at 10 percent of discretionary income and forgiving loans after 20 years of payments is expected to benefit unemployed or low-paid Americans struggling to repay student loans.
SK/C03.07) Alex Lang, DOMINION POST (Morgantown, WV), November 14, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Recently, President Obama announced a couple of plans to help students and their debt. Some students will be able to consolidate their loans into one program. There is also an early implementation of changes in the Income Based Repayment program, such as forgiving remaining debt after 20 years instead of the current 25 years. The program uses a person's income to determine how much they pay back each month.
SK/C04. LOW-COST OPTIONS ARE AVAILABLE
1. STUDENTS CAN SELECT LOW-COST COLLEGES
SK/C04.01) Howard Freedman [President, Financial Aid Consulting], DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION, August 4, 2011, p. 23, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. The good news is that a college education is available to those willing to forgo the more expensive schools and opt for a less expensive university.
2. COMMUNITY COLLEGES ARE AN INEXPENSIVE OPTION
SK/C04.02) Michelle Healy, USA TODAY, October 5, 2010, p. 6D, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Families have a tough time paying for college in today's tight economy, but there are things they can do to make college more affordable and attainable. One key is applying to a variety of schools -- public, private, in-state, and a local community college as a backup plan, recommends admissions consultant Katherine Cohen of . In an online survey of 137 families with college-bound students, ApplyWise and media partner NextStepU found that more than a third said it was likely that their child would go to community college for two years, then transfer to a four-year school. In 2008, only 13% said that was likely.
SK/C04.03) Jenna Ross, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 23, 2011, p. 1A, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. About one-third of poor students attend public two-year colleges, a greater share than other income levels. But suddenly, a bigger chunk of high-income families are attending these low-cost institutions -- 22 percent in 2010-11 compared to 12 percent in 2009-10. "This might help explain how middle- and higher-income families were able to reduce their contributions from income and savings," the study says, "and decrease the overall amount they paid for college."
3. MANY STUDENTS CAN OBTAIN GRANTS
SK/C04.04) Jenna Ross, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 23, 2011, p. 1A, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. More of those students also received grants. For the first time in the study's history, more families said that they filed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid -- 80 percent, compared to 72 percent who said so last year. Most of that increase came from middle- and high-income categories.
4. ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENABLES EARLY GRADUATION
SK/C04.05) Lamar Alexander [U.S. Senator], NEWSWEEK, October 26, 2009, p. 26, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. One of five students arrives at college today with Advanced Placement credits amounting to a semester or more of college-level work. Many universities, including large schools like the University of Texas, make it easy for these AP students to graduate faster. According to the U.S. Department of Education's most recent statistics, about 5 percent of U.S. undergraduates finished with bachelor's degrees in three years.
5. STUDENTS ARE SELECTING MORE LUCRATIVE FIELDS
SK/C04.06) Michelle Healy, USA TODAY, October 5, 2010, p. 6D, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The survey also found that 13% of parents said their child is changing their major to one that might have more income potential at graduation. That's up from 4.3% of families in 2008.
SK/C05. COLLEGE IMPROVES EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
1. COLLEGE GRADUATES HAVE LOWER UNEMPLOYMENT RATES
SK/C05.01) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, November 18, 2011, pNA, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Still, economists say college remains an important path to prosperity for millions of Americans - providing the skills for significantly higher earnings over the span of a working career. And in general, people with college degrees have a much lower unemployment rate than those without. Among workers over age 25, the jobless rate stands at 4.4 percent as of October for people with bachelor's degrees, compared with 9.6 percent for those with a high school diploma and 13.8 percent for those without.
SK/C05.02) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. With the unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent, today's job market is bad for everyone. One group does seem to fare better than the rest, however: The jobless rate for workers with a bachelor's degree or better is just 4.3 percent, compared with 14.3 percent for high school dropouts.
SK/C05.03) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 3, 2011, p. A20, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The average debt -- once again the highest on record -- came as the class of 2010 faced an unemployment rate for new college graduates of 9.1 percent, the highest in recent years, according to the report by the Project on Student Debt, which pointed out that unemployment rates for those without college degrees were still higher.
2. HIRING OF COLLEGE GRADUATES IS POISED TO IMPROVE
SK/C05.04) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, November 18, 2011, pNA, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Hiring for college grads is poised to improve during the current academic year - a welcome piece of positive news for young Americans who have been among those most affected by a weak job market. Hiring of new bachelor's degree holders will increase about 7 percent, compared with the 2010-11 academic year, according to a newly released survey of 4,200 job recruiters by the College Employment Research Institute. "This year's market ... shows a more consistent pattern of growth across industry sectors," concludes a summary from the institute, which is based at Michigan State University in East Lansing.
3. DROPPING OUT OF COLLEGE FOR WORK IS NOT WISE
SK/C05.05) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. So what happens to the Class of 2015 - the students who have just moved into their dorm rooms and are settling into introductory lectures this fall? What should they do? They should stay put. Their best bet, by far, is to go to college and wait out as much of the economic storm as they can. If they can afford it, the smartest move may be to stay in school or in some sort of training program until the economy recovers in 2017.
SK/C05.06) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Skipping college and settling for a lower-paying career simply is not a smart trade-off, despite hype to the contrary from pundits such as Richard Vedder of the American Enterprise Institute, and Paul Harrington and Andrew Sum of Northeastern University. They are just handing out bad advice to other people's children.
4. FUTURE JOBS WILL INCREASINGLY REQUIRE COLLEGE EDUCATION
SK/C05.07) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. And the dim job market will actually increase the demand for college-educated workers. One of the root causes of stalled job creation is an economic trend that picked up steam during the recent recession: Technological advances - combined with relentless global competition and cost-cutting pressures - have accelerated the automation of routine and programmable tasks in every occupation. The jobs that are disappearing are those in manufacturing and similar industries that used to provide good paychecks to workers with high school diplomas or less. They required little in the way of education or formal training. The jobs that are left are those that involve more sophisticated, non-routine tasks, which demand deeper knowledge as well as problem-solving and interpersonal skills. This means that employers are looking increasingly for workers with post-secondary credentials over those with only a high school diploma.
SK/C05.08) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. In 1973, more than 70 percent of jobs required only a high school diploma or less, but that number had fallen to 43 percent by 2010. The future promises more of the same. Over the next decade, our research shows, there will be 31 million job openings that will require at least some education or training beyond high school - 9 million newly created jobs and 22 million openings to replace retiring baby boomers.
SK/C05.09) Chris Farrell [American Public Media], STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 22, 2010, p. 1D, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Almost all the job growth in the economy in the past several decades has been in professions, careers and jobs that require at least some post-secondary education. For instance, over the past decade much of the growth in employment has been in health care, education and government. Jobs that were once filled by high school graduates -- including factory work -- now often require a two-year associate degree or a certificate of accomplishment from a community college.
SK/C05.10) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. By 2020, it's projected that more than 60 percent of the jobs in Georgia will require some form of a college education. Today, that number is only 42 percent.
5. DEMAND FOR COLLEGE GRADUATES IS HIGH IN MANY FIELDS
SK/C05.11) Mark Trumbull, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, November 18, 2011, pNA, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The new report says computer science majors are among those in strong demand, with not enough graduates to fill all positions. Grads with expertise in accounting, engineering, finance, and supply-chain management also enjoy strong prospects. Demand from agriculture and food-processing employers is up strongly. Other fields with improving opportunities include marketing, advertising, public relations, sales, nursing, clinical laboratory scientists, human resources, chemistry, statistics, and math.
SK/C05.12) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. But how many of those entrepreneurs without degrees, from Gates to Zuckerberg, staff their companies with people who lack college degrees? The backbone of a company is a highly trained workforce. This is precisely why so many companies spend vast amounts of time and money recruiting on college campuses. Limiting access to American higher education is a recipe for economic failure, not entrepreneurial growth.
6. ENGINEERING SCHOOL GRADUATES HAVE STRONG JOB PROSPECTS
SK/C05.13) Joseph J. Helble [Dean, School of Engineering, Dartmouth College], USA TODAY, May 27, 2011, p. 10A, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The recent report by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce is a nice counterpoint to old concerns about technology jobs migrating overseas ("Petroleum engineering majors can grease skids, study shows," News, Tuesday). Engineering enrollments are growing to levels we haven't seen since the 1980s, with students attracted to new opportunities in areas like energy, the president's "Sputnik moment." The study makes it pretty clear that well-paying opportunities will be waiting for engineering students at the end.
7. TOUGH JOB MARKET WILL STRENGTHEN LAW SCHOOLS
SK/C05.14) Alan Scher Zagier, THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE, September 2, 2011, p. 6, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "This year, people realize that this is not a one-year economic decline," said Sarah Zearfoss, assistant law dean and admissions director at Michigan. "It seems to be a much longer-term problem." That's not necessarily bad, she said. Law schools may now be attracting more committed students, Zearfoss said. "Now that people are aware it's not a cake walk to get a big salary, they're thinking more carefully and a little more rationally about making this choice," she said.
SK/C06. COLLEGE IMPROVES LIFETIME EARNINGS
1. COLLEGE GRADUATES HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER EARNINGS
SK/C06.01) Chris Farrell [American Public Media], STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 22, 2010, p. 1D, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. A college degree is a passport to better earnings and more employment over a lifetime. Employers want educated workers. College graduates are not only paid more than their high-school-only peers, they're also more likely to get jobs with health insurance and an employer-sponsored pension plan.
SK/C06.02) GIFTED CHILD TODAY, Winter 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Individuals with higher levels of education earn more and are more likely than others to be employed. Median earnings of bachelor's degree recipients were $55,700 as compared to $33,800 for high school graduates. Women and men with bachelor's degrees earned 79% and 74% higher median incomes, respectively, than their counterparts with only a high school diploma. College-educated adults are more likely than others to receive health insurance and pension benefits from their employers and be satisfied with their jobs.
SK/C06.03) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The value of a college degree is rising. A recent College Board study found that in 2008 the median salaries of women and men ages 25 to 34 with a college degree were 79 percent and 74 percent higher than peers with only high school diplomas. Moreover, unemployment rates for the college-educated have consistently stayed significantly lower than those who are not college educated.
SK/C06.04) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, November 30, 2011, p. A20, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Even as college has become more expensive, Mr. Duncan [U.S. Secretary of Education] said, it has also become an increasingly important investment, because those with bachelor's degrees, on average, earn about $1 million more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma.
SK/C06.05) Alan Scher Zagier, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 6, 2010, p. A2, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Margaret Spellings, education secretary under President George W. Bush, remains a strong proponent of increased college access. She points to research showing that college graduates will, on average, earn $1 million more over a lifetime than those with only high school degrees. "It is crucial to the success of our country and to us as individuals to graduate more students from college," she said at a National Press Club forum this year. "We Americans greatly believe that education is the great equalizer."
SK/C06.06) Emma Marris, NATURE, June 10, 2010, p. 678, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Yet although the recession has added stress and cost to the undergraduate education system, most administrators argue that an undergraduate degree remains good value. "I don't apologize for the tuition we have to charge because when our students graduate they are making $50,000-70,000 a year," says Carney [Chancellor, Missouri University of Science and Technology]. "It is a tremendous bargain." Shulenburger [Vice-President, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities] agrees. "There's still no better investment, long run, than getting that degree" he says.
2. EARNINGS ADVANTAGE WILL ACCELERATE IN THE FUTURE
SK/C06.07) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. The bachelor's degree that a graduate gets in 2015 will, on average, be worth $1 million more in lifetime earnings than a high school diploma. Even the most expensive colleges cost only a fraction of their ultimate payoff. The only thing more expensive than going to college is not going to college.
3. GRADUATE DEGREES PRODUCE EVEN HIGHER EARNINGS
SK/C06.08) Anthony P. Carnevale [Center on Education & the Workforce, Georgetown U.], THE WASHINGTON POST, September 18, 2011, p. B3, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Almost a third of associate's degree holders - mostly in health care and technical programs - earn more than the median worker with a BA. Within the same occupation, however, education levels do affect earnings. And many graduate degrees will be worth staying in college through 2017 to earn. In engineering, for example, getting a graduate degree rather than stopping with a certificate can add $1 million in lifetime wages. Much the same is true for all other STEM degrees and jobs. In business, the difference between an associate's degree in management and a master's degree is more than $1.5 million over a career, on average.
SK/C07. COLLEGE HAS MANY NON-EMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
1. GOAL OF COLLEGE IS INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
SK/C07.01) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Many presidents, however, appear to balk at a more jobs-oriented approach to education. The largest share of respondents to the Pew/Chronicle survey identified promoting intellectual growth as the primary role for colleges to play, prizing it over general workplace skills or specific career training.
SK/C07.02) Karin Fischer, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, May 15, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. That response heartens Paula M. Krebs, a professor of English at Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, who said she has worried that higher education "could succumb to the language of utility." Colleges shouldn't be judged, she argued, on graduates' first jobs out but rather on the intellectual foundation they provide. After all, says Ms. Krebs, now an American Council on Education fellow at the University of Massachusetts, "no one thinks high school should be training for the work world only. No one advocates a high-school curriculum of just shop classes, or just computer-science courses. You have to take English, math, history."
SK/C07.03) Lamar Alexander [U.S. Senator], NEWSWEEK, October 26, 2009, p. 26, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. "Most high governmental officials who speak of education policy seem to conceive of education in this light--as a way to ensure economic competitiveness and continued economic growth," Derek Bok, president emeritus of Harvard told The Washington Post. "I strongly disagree with this approach."
2. COLLEGE PROVIDES UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY FOR DEVELOPMENT
SK/C07.04) Claudia Dreifus & Andrew Hacker, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, July 11, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. But some 64 percent of undergraduate students are enrolled in vocational majors, instead of choosing fields like philosophy, literature, or the physical sciences. We'd like to persuade them that supposedly impractical studies are a wiser use of college and ultimately a better investment. The undergraduate years are an interlude that will never come again, a time to liberate the imagination and stretch one's intellect without worrying about a possible payoff. We want that opportunity for everyone, not just the offspring of professional parents.
SK/C07.05) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Campuses offer real skills, as well as intangible benefits. Much of the intangible benefits of college is what makes it so unique. At almost no other point in life can one be exposed for an extended period to a self-contained ecosystem of educated, self-motivated peers who share so much and yet so little in common.
3. COLLEGE IMPROVES CRITICAL THINKING
SK/C07.06) Avi Bhuiyan [U. of Texas at Austin] & Mohammad Bhuiyan [Professor of Entrepreneurship, FSU], THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, November 21, 2011, p. A10, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. A college education trains a student to think critically and hone her ability to articulate herself. These skills are invaluable, practical and, most important, future-proof. As any startup business owner can tell you, one of the greatest assets to a budding entrepreneur is the ability to understand an exceptional challenge and be able to react nimbly and intelligently to solve it with limited resources and incomplete information. Sharp reasoning and effective problem-solving skills are a must in today's economy, and these skills are the centerpiece of the American college experience.
SK/C07.07) Joe Smydo, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, February 9, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. The college experience sparks lifelong friendships and gives students opportunities to begin building professional networks. In and outside of the classroom, students develop confidence, communication, problem-solving and teamwork skills, the so-called "soft skills" highly valued by employers but just as relevant to other parts of a person's life. If early adolescence is a time of growth spurts, the college years bring comparable jumps in personal development. "I'm more open-minded than I've ever been," said James Jermany, a Robert Morris University sophomore, crediting the daily interaction with peers from diverse backgrounds.
SK/C07.08) Rebecca Mead, THE NEW YORKER, June 7, 2010, p. 21, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Even so, one needn't necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic advancement. Unaddressed in that calculus is any question of what else an education might be for: to nurture critical thought; to expose individuals to the signal accomplishments of humankind; to develop in them an ability not just to listen actively but to respond intelligently.
4. COLLEGE IMPROVES HEALTH AND HAPPINESS
SK/C07.09) GIFTED CHILD TODAY, Winter 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. College education is linked to healthier lifestyles with college-educated adults and their children less likely than those with only a high school diploma to be obese or smoke. College-educated parents engage in more educational activities with their children, who are therefore better prepared for school than other children.
SK/C07.10) F.W. Musgrave, CHOICE: CURRENT REVIEW FOR ACADEMIC LIBRARIES, October 2009, p. 361, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. This [HIGHER LEARNING, GREATER GOOD: THE PRIVATE AND SOCIAL BENEFITS OF HIGHER EDUCATION, by Walter W. McMahon] is a significant contribution to both theory and research findings in the study of investment in higher education. McMahon's clear definitions of economic efficiency, internal and external, provide the context for the comparisons of social and private benefits relative to costs incurred. His human capital approach measures the values of market earnings, private non-market benefits, and social benefits of higher education. The private non-market benefits include better health, longevity, and happiness for college graduates. The social benefits of higher education are in the form of externalities or spillover benefits that accrue to others.
SK/C07.11) Joe Smydo, PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, February 9, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. A college education can cost tens of thousands of dollars and consume four or more years of a person's life. What does one get for that? For many, the answer is much more than a diploma and preparation for work in a particular field. Studies have shown that college graduates make more money, feel better about themselves, vote more often and have other advantages over people who lack post-secondary education.
5. SOCIAL BENEFITS TRUMP ECONOMIC COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
SK/C07.12) Alan Scher Zagier, THE WASHINGTON POST, June 6, 2010, p. A2, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. For many, the dream of earning a college degree -- and the social acceptance that comes with that accomplishment -- trumps a more analytical, cost-benefits approach.
SK/C08. COLLEGE EDUCATION IS VITAL TO THE NATION
1. U.S. DEMOCRACY DEPENDS ON AN EDUCATED CITIZENRY
SK/C08.01) Robert L. Borosage [Co-Director, Campaign for America’s Future], THE AMERICAN PROSPECT, February 2004, p. 35, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. An educated citizenry is the hallmark of America’s democracy and central to the success of its economy. That was true at the founding of the republic, when Common Sense, Thomas Paine's call for independence, sold 112,000 copies in three months--the equivalent of 17 million today--to the remarkably literate colonial settlers of the time. It was surely true in the last century, as America rose to prominence and prosperity. Education provided a common language and a common civic culture to the immigrants who flooded our shores. America became the first country to require 12 years of formal schooling. After World War II with the GI Bill, ours became the first nation to provide widespread college education. Integrating America's schools was central to the effort to end segregation and address the challenge of equal opportunity for all. Our commitment to education has helped to forge the broad middle class that is the pride of America's democracy and the foundation of its prosperity.
SK/C08.02) Edward Renner [Professor, Honors Program, U. of South Florida], THE ST. PETERSBURG TIMES, November 18, 2011, p. 13A, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Historically, the United States made investments in education as the way to secure the future of the nation and to provide the equality of opportunity that defined the American dream.
SK/C08.03) Edward J.K. Gitre, THE HEDGEHOG REVIEW, Spring 2010, p. 62, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Nearly from the republic's inception, the nation's leadership class had convinced itself of the civic virtues of an educated citizenry. "No republic can maintain itself in strength" without it, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Tyler in 1810. It alone would "enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom." In modern times the blue-to-white-collar conversion of our economy from raw resources and industrial manufacturing to information and sophisticated technologies bolstered Jeffersonian virtue with a strong dose of Millsian self-interest. Add into this mix Congress's passage of the 1944 GI Bill, which inundated higher education with millions of average American males, and there is the basis of our official ideology.
2. COLLEGE PRODUCES BETTER CITIZENS
SK/C08.04) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Whether students' motivation to obtain a degree is to serve humanity or to amass personal fortunes, the effect of higher education on those who participate in it is to influence the formation of these individuals' skills and their values, both personal and civic. No matter who pays, society as a whole benefits when citizens are college graduates. We see the results in such areas as voting behavior, involvement in community and civic affairs, and charitable giving. For private colleges at least, there's even evidence to suggest that the college experience makes people feel more fulfilled in their lives.
SK/C08.05) GIFTED CHILD TODAY, Winter 2011, p. 8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Adults with higher levels of education are more active citizens with 43% of bachelor's degree recipients participating in community service activities as compared to 19% of high school graduates.
3. COLLEGE PROMOTES TOLERANCE OF DIVERSITY
SK/C08.06) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Because only a handful of college students can, by definition, attend the most selective colleges, the less selective institutions continue to enroll the vast majority of college students, including greater numbers of students from low-income backgrounds. If the college experience is the great mixing bowl of democratic socialization today for a very large percentage of the population (as compulsory military service for an even higher percentage of the male population once was), the track records of many of the less selective colleges show them to be superb engines of social mobility--enrolling students of diverse backgrounds and graduating them in timely fashion.
SK/C08.07) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Harvard could fill its entering class with valedictorians and students with perfect SAT scores, but often it chooses to give preference to students with other talents--a virtuoso violinist, a student council president, a star athlete. Yale could fill its entering class with white, middle-class children from the Northeast, but it chooses to diversify its class by geography, race, ethnicity, and economic background. These choices are highly laudable.
4. COLLEGE EDUCATION IS VITAL TO U.S. COMPETITIVENESS
SK/C08.08) Tamar Lewin, THE NEW YORK TIMES, July 23, 2010, p. A11, LEXIS-NEXIS Academic. Adding to a drumbeat of concern about the nation's dismal college-completion rates, the College Board warned Thursday that the growing gap between the United States and other countries threatens to undermine American economic competitiveness. The United States used to lead the world in the number of 25- to 34-year-olds with college degrees. Now it ranks 12th among 36 developed nations. “The growing education deficit is no less a threat to our nation's long-term well-being than the current fiscal crisis,” Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board, warned at a meeting on Capitol Hill of education leaders and policy makers, where he released a report detailing the problem and recommending how to fix it.
5. UNIVERSAL COLLEGE EDUCATION SHOULD BE OUR GOAL
SK/C08.09) Claudia Dreifus & Andrew Hacker, THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, July 11, 2010, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. We believe all Americans can do college work, so universal enrollment should be our nation's goal.
SK/C09. BENEFITS OF COLLEGE ARE WORTH THE COSTS
1. COLLEGES’ MANY BENEFITS ARE WORTH THE COSTS
SK/C09.01) Chris Farrell [American Public Media], STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 22, 2010, p. 1D, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. What is the lesson for students and their parents? I'd ignore a fashionable stream of commentary suggesting that a college sheepskin isn't worth it. The job, career, income, intellectual and social rewards of college are too great to pass up. Instead, the message is to borrow carefully.
SK/C09.02) Tim Barker, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, May 16, 2011, p. A4, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. And financial aid advisers are quick to point out that borrowing can be one of the best decisions a student makes. "If that's what you need to do to earn your degree, it's a good investment," said Jim Brooks, Mizzou's financial aid director.
2. INCREASED EARNINGS ARE WORTH THE FINANCIAL COSTS
SK/C09.03) Richard Ekman [The Council of Independent Colleges], UNIVERSITY BUSINESS, April 2008, p. 37, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Here’s a philosophy of life that would make Ben Franklin proud: An individual ought to consider the personal expense of a college education as an investment in his or her future. Why? The lifetime earnings of a college graduate far exceed the lifetime earnings of a nongraduate--and by a lot more than the price of tuition--so the cost-benefit calculation ought to be simple.
SK/C09.04) Terrie Morgan-Besecker, TIMES LEADER (Wilkes-Barre, PA), August 28, 2011, pNA, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Isaac Bowers, an attorney with Equal Justice Works, a nonprofit organization that advocates for student loan reform, said he believes that for the majority of students, college is still a good investment. The problem is many students fail to adequately consider all factors when deciding which college to attend, he said. "If you go to a good college or university and can graduate with less than $30,000 in debt, you should still be making in the area that a college education pays off," Bowers said.
3. MOST STUDENTS AGREE THAT BENEFITS ARE WORTH THE COSTS
SK/C09.05) Editorial, THE REGISTER-GUARD (Eugene, OR), May 17, 2011, p. A8, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. Despite such economic gloom, 94 percent of parents surveyed said they expect their children to go to college. Eighty-four percent of graduates said their degrees were a good investment, despite the cost. Enrollments are at record levels across the county.
SK/C09.06) Jenna Ross, STAR TRIBUNE (Minneapolis), August 23, 2011, p. 1A, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Custom Newspapers. "While families were able to stretch in the shortest of terms ... that can only go so far," Ipsos pollster Clifford Young said. "There's some downsizing going on." But they're still sending their children to college. Nine out of 10 students strongly agreed that it's "an investment in the future."
4. ONLY THE FOOLHARDY DISPUTE COST-BENEFIT CONCLUSION
SK/C09.07) THE WILSON QUARTERLY, Spring 2008, p. 74, GALE CENGAGE LEARNING, Expanded Academic ASAP. Few but the foolhardy would dispute the value of a college education. In addition to enjoying the intrinsic benefits of four years of education beyond high school, college graduates simply make more money-a lot more.
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