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Armita KabirpourMarch, 2013/ ENGH122Nowadays most of the people are involved in academia especially higher education. “Education” is described as the process of teaching and learning, usually at school, college, or university. Strictly defined, higher education means disseminating knowledge, including the necessary student skills for learning. Education is not a business for professors and administrators to make money, based on what Michael Potts (2005) states in his article, The consumerist subversion of education (P. 61). “Education” comes from the word educare (educate) originally?of?education, which was in?social?codes?and manners. The analysis of scholarly and popular sources that are related to the value of higher education shows education does not work in the same way for all college graduates; it depends also on individuals themselves. Therefore, the answer to the question, “is higher education worth it?” is complicated because people view education’s requirements, consequences and impacts differently.One way that people evaluate higher education is by looking at its value, quality and mission based on, “Is College Worth It?” research done by Pew Research Center (2004, p. 5). To illustrate, 57% of Americans believe higher education in the United States does not provide good value for the budget that students and families spend. Four in ten college presidents also argue about the system’s being misleading. However the same research states that, 22% of Americans still believe most of the general public people’s are able to afford college education. Moreover, in response to the critical research question in this research that says, “What is the Main Purpose of college?” (p. 14) researchers face various opinions from the general public including, gaining work related skills and knowledge, individual growth both personally and intellectually and some people believe in both ideas. People’s different perspectives about the values and influences of higher education can be inferred from this research. This research supports the idea that answer to the question, “Is college worth it?” is complicated because general public people, college presidents, and college students evaluate the value and result of education differently. Another perception about higher education is that higher education is not the only way for future success. According to an article called, “How Students Can Take Charge of Their Education”, by Holly Epstein Ojalvo (2011) in The New York Times, Micheal Ellsberg’s opinion about higher education is that schools fail in promoting creativity and teaching essential skills and habits of mind; he provides examples of entrepreneurs who were college dropouts such as, Dale J. Stephens an elementary school dropout with educated parents who created his own education by taking advantage of extracurricular activities and turning them into a cohesive academic program (p. 1). In other words, we can “hack our education” (P.1) by breaking some rules to create unique options and chances for ourselves. This article argues that education is not the only way to survive build a successful future. And in fact, to prove the possibility of stepping through success without investing in higher education, he provides some steps to hack our education and create a life syllabus by answering the questions such as, “Who I am?”, “What do I love?” and, “Where am I going?”. By this he means we need to analyze our personality, interests, and plans for future in order to decide whether or not the college is worth it for us. From this article we can again conclude that the value of higher education specially in making our future differs from individual to individual. Another idea about higher education is that it influences not only our professional life, but also our social life. Based on a large body of research, which is expressed in an article on website by Julie Mack and Kalamazoo Gazette (2012) named, “What’s the Value of a College Degree? Turns out Education Improves Everything From Health to Marriage”, a college degree can play a role in almost every aspect of life including marriage, children, health, civic engagement, and happiness (p. 2). To put into details, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics research unemployment rate for individuals with bachelor’s degree was less than for those who have associate’s degree or some college, the rate for high school graduates who did not attend college is more, and the highest unemployment percentage is for high school dropouts. Bachelors and master’s degree therefore have noticeable effects on the amount of income people earn. In addition, this article points out the fact that higher education affects even people’s marriage and children, which was shown in a research done by Pew Research Center and University of Virginia. To illustrate, educated parents’ children are more likely to be raised in two parent families, have better school performance, and are less likely to suffer from poverty. The value of education furthermore influences our health conditions such as, living longer, having better health and, mental fitness. We can additionally see more civic engagements like weekly church attendance in college graduates. Happiness is also likely to result from having college degree. As the author mentions, people with college degrees tend to report a better sense of wellbeing, which results in earning more money, more stable home lives and better health. This article supports the idea that college is worth it by evaluating not only college graduates employment rate and income, but also their social life and future family. All in all, it is not simple to answer the question about the value of education right away since, higher education has different effects on different individuals. We can conclude from scholarly and popular articles that general public people think of its value in various ways and they even benefit from their degrees differently. In the Pew Research Center article we can see the results of research supports both optimistic and pessimistic perspectives about higher education. Whereas, both PRC and Mack & Gazette’s articles support the value of higher education by considering both academic and non-academic consequences of higher education. At the same time, some ideas that prove higher education is not worth it and people cannot afford it are mentioned in the PRC and Ojalvo’s article. The PRC article is based on statistics and analyzes both points of view equaly. Juxtaposing, Ojalvo’s article agrees with the idea that education is not the only way to succeed and the author supports the idea with examples from real life. We can find the analysis of the influence of college degree on other aspects of life and the results of academic research in Mack & Gazette’s article. In the final analysis, I figured out that everybody has different interests, situations and talents so they will succeed by either the consequence of attending college or using their personal creativity. ReferencesAdelman, C. (2004). Is college worth it.?Pew Research Center, 5-17.Mack, J., & Gazette, K. (2012). What is the value of college degree? turns out education improves everything from health to marriage.?Everything Michigan. Retrieved from , H. E. (2011). How students can take charge of their education.?The Learning Network. Retrieved from , M. (2005). The consumerist subversion of education.?Academic Questions, 54-64 ................
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