Jerry Poo
ENG 2150 Dr. Blankenship
4/22/16
Paper 2: Narrative Argument FINAL
Dear Dr. Blankenship and Writing Group:
The title of my paper is “Is the College Degree necessary?” This paper was written with the intention of targeting any student who looks to attend college, attending college, or already graduated from college. Some of my secondary audience can be teachers, parents, and state officials who all play a key role in the success of the students. With students being the main audience, I plan to talk about many of my points as if I were to talk to a student. I want to ensure that they understand what they are getting themselves into with the hopes that they do not make the mistake of ending up with student loan debt with little to no hopes of paying it off. I have seen far too many people struggling to keep up with payments and I don’t want people to think that it is the only way to succeed. This reaffirms my stance on college not being necessary. Not because of the debt, but because of the world we currently live in. There are just so many opportunities out there for us to take advantage of, but many people choose not to. With many of the opportunities available to us on the internet, people who end up investing the same money they would have spent on tuition can end up making as much if not more than many of the college graduates out there. I plan to support my claim with numbers that support both sides, while picking apart at the opposing side using alternative methods and just going into detail about how a college degree is overvalued. Just because you are making money does not mean that you got the most out of the money you spent.
For me, the hardest part in writing this whole piece was choosing the information I wanted to use to support my claims because a lot of the support I used can also be used to support the opposing side depending on how you look at it. I wanted the piece to be really convey my thoughts on the matter, but I am often the victim of being very blunt. I had to tone down my initial first draft in order to not come off as being radical or egotistical. I didn’t want to completely disregard how I really felt on the matter, so I tried to tone back what I could so elements of who I am are shown in my writing. Choosing a position that was heavily biased toward one end of the spectrum made it hard to find people who actually felt the same way I did. If there was any part that I saw myself doing a good job on, it would have to be the literary narrative part of the piece. That was the only part I was really able to be myself. One of the things I feel like I could put a lot more work into would be the choice of vocabulary since it feels like a lot of the words I used get repetitive. Above all, I felt like my organization I struggle with.
Questions for Dr. Blankenship and writing group::
Do my sources support my point of view?
Have I stated my thesis in a way that makes it clear?
Was the paper organized in a way that made sense?
Is there something I should have put more emphasis on?
Did I come off as being too strong?
Is the College Degree necessary?
Having come from China with next to nothing, my parents saw education as the only way to solidify our position in the new setting. My mother found herself working as a seamstress, while my father worked in construction just to put my brother through school and raise a baby me. Watching themselves having to raise their children in an apartment with two other families was not easy for them to do. Who would have thought that the very same children they worked so hard to put through school ended up not valuing education as highly as they had? All they ever wanted was for their children to graduate from college so that they would not have to see their children live in the same conditions as they had to. They worked hard enough to move out of that cesspool by the time I was the age of five, but that was when a clash in ideals forced my brother to leave us when I was five.
My brother being older than me by thirteen years was like a second father to me. When our parents were working all day, he took care of me. Even though I was still an infant, I can still remember him doing everything he could to make money and take care of the family. He started his own business on the side to help put food on the table and pay the bills at the age of 15. Despite all of his work outside of school, he kept up good grades and got accepted into every college he applied to, but ended up feeling like college was not for him. He had to have known that he could succeed without doing what everyone before him had done. There was no doubt in my mind that he would go on to achieve great things, but our parents had to have thought differently when they made the decision to kick him out of the house after he had informed them of his decision. Things were never really the same after that.
My parents ended up becoming the punching bag for many family gatherings to come. Having been the only ones to have no children in college, there was nothing they could do to defend themselves. I had to bear witness to many of these said gatherings and I have to say that there are things that you would never want anyone to ever have to experience. Life went on for the three of us. They continued working, but school was not easy for me with. By the time I entered high school, I had probably spent more time being suspended than actually attending class, but the grades kept up nonetheless. My parents were never really around so I was able to have a lot of freedom in doing whatever I wanted to. They didn’t know it yet, but by my second year of high school, I had made up my mind on following in my brother’s footsteps. He had taken me under his wing and began to teach me how to run his business so that I could one day take over after I no longer had any obligation for school. I was amazed at how far he’s come when compared to the last time I saw him ten years prior. He now supplied clothing on regular basis to clients overseas. Many of the big celebrities in Asia now looked for him if they were looking something they wanted. He had not only fully paid off a house of his own, but managed to even purchase one for our parents despite everything that had transpired. He had taken it upon himself to prove everyone wrong. You can bet that my parents were no longer punching bags at the very next family gathering. Alongside my brother, they were now heralded as individuals worthy of praise.
From nothing to something, laughingstock to idols, no emotion could have possibly described the rollercoaster they have experienced since arriving to the states. I thought that them, of all people, would have been able to understand where I was coming from when I finally decided to tell them about my plans to not attend college. After having seen what one son was able to achieve, and having that same son guide the younger one, their attachment to education never ceased to amaze me. To this day, they are still adamant on me furthering myself through education despite everything I have going for me without it. They say that there is no rush for me to start working since we are no longer in the same situation that I was born into. They knew that I wouldn’t have to worry about the debt that many of our relatives had to face since I managed to make enough money to cover my tuition with ease. Debt may not be a problem for me, but the time and money I have to invest into something that I will more than likely have no use for in the future is something that is still in the back of my mind to this day. That being said, I felt like I at least owed my parents the thing they desire the most; a son who is a college graduate. Now, having actually attended college, I still feel as though college is not worth the investment. While that may not be true for everybody, it is something that is true for a lot of people.
With the cost of attaining a college degree being as high as it has ever been, one has to at least wonder whether or not pursuing a degree is worth it. The cost of tuition has only gone up as the years have gone by, whereas the value of a college degree has not followed that same trajectory. What someone gets out of college is different for everybody. After looking at my family as a whole, I was able to understand the different perspectives on the matter. For some, it might be exactly what propels themselves into making a good living. For others, it might be a complete waste of time. While there may be countless stories of individuals who ended up doing good for themselves, there the same amount if not more of those who do not.
In both scenarios, the parties are more than likely bound by the fact that they will be graduating with debt. The main thing that sets the two parties apart in this case would be the major they chose to pursue. The most important part of making the most of what you can earn out of your college degree is when you decide your major. In the piece Is College worth it?, written by The Economist, they say that “hard subjects pay off.” This essentially means people who end up choosing to pursue a degree in something that they are passionate about will find themselves struggling to pay off their student loans. In an anecdote from one of the individuals by the name of Latisha Styles who shared their story with them, she spoke of her experience with student loans. She attended college to pursue a degree in Spanish, but ended up finding herself working at a fast food restaurant making $11 an hour upon the completion of her degree. With the $35,000 of student debt, she decided it would be best for her to head back to school and major in something that would prove to be more lucrative. After her second go around, she had a degree in finance and a job at a consulting firm. She will now have no trouble paying off her now $65,000 debt. This example highlights one of the things they don’t tell you about when you choose to pursue a certain major. While a college degree is a college degree, it is impossible to deny that some are worth more than others despite costing the same.
It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that just because you are making money after graduating from college that you have gotten your money’s worth. In a graphic done by the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics), we can see that the amount of work needed to pay off one year’s tuition has now become much more than just working a minimum wage job over a summer. To avoid any debt once you graduate, you will now find yourself having to work full time throughout your entire time attending college. What does this mean for people who are unable to work? They are forced to take out loans and hope that the degree they chose will be enough to pay off the debt they’ve accrued.
According to a piece written by Catherine Rampell in the Washington Post, the average funding per student has decreased by an average of $1800 over the past five years. It’s not like their decrease in funding has done anything to hamper the profitability of these institutions. In fact, they have seen tuition revenues net around $1,100 more per student over that same time period. Not only are we now paying more to attend school to get the same degree as we would have gotten 40 years ago at a much cheaper price, but we are also getting less bang for our buck. To compensate for decrease in funding, universities have been lowering the quality of the learning environment within their facilities. Delaying much need repairs and increasing classroom size are just some of the things that come to mind. Many of the individuals who used to be professors are now replaced with low-cost adjuncts who will most likely not bring the same level of knowledge and experience to the table. While these figures are only for public institutions that are backed by government funding, attending a private college doesn’t make your life any more better.
In fact, attending a private college might be even more of a trap since the annual tuition of these institutions is more than double those that are public. In a graphic done by PayScale, it showed that spending more on your degree does not necessarily mean a higher return on your investment. In fact, some of the more expensive institutions lead to a smaller or even negative return on your investment than some of the cheaper ones. Among the handful of colleges selected for the graphic, the University of Virginia saw an the highest annual return despite a degree costing just over $25,000. Meanwhile, you have some Universities with degrees that cost over $100,000 giving back an annual return under one percent. Even your prestigious schools from the Ivy League averaged an annual return of only 13%, and that is with their talent pool being among the best the country has to offer. While a return on your investment from certain institution varies, the main thing that determines where you will stand post graduation is the major you ended up pursing. In the piece done by the Economist, they talked about how a degree in engineering from the most prestigious of schools can end up earning you around $1.1 million over 20 years more than a high school graduate. Even those who attend lesser schools and those who chose an engineering degree that was less desireable ended up seeing themselves make $500,000 more over 20 years than a high school graduate. If we were to look at someone who were to say pursue an arts degree from say Murray State in Kentucky, the can expect to make “$147,000 less over 20 years than a high school graduate, after paying for his education” (The Economist).
Depending on your background, and what you plan to pursue, a college degree may very well be worth it. Let’s be real, not everybody attends college with their mind set on pursuing something that will end up making them the most money. Many people want to pursue something that they are passionate about, and they shouldn’t be punished with the inability to pay of the debt they have had to take on in order to do so. Jennifer Barrett, a journalist on financial matters said that “while students can up their odds of success, college remains a risky, and expensive investment for families” (Barrett). If the only thing you’re looking for is to learn, then you might as well just take online courses since they are a far cheaper alternative. The most valuable thing you might miss out on if you were to take online courses would have to be the experience and the networking opportunities. While those are valuable, are those enough to validate your cost of attending traditional classes?
Many of the degrees on the higher end of potential earnings require one to attend traditional classes. These tend to be the ones that those from the lower income brackets will choose to pursue. These degrees are still one of the safer ways of solidifying your position in a higher income bracket. That is not to say that alternatives do not exist. With society the way it is nowadays, many opportunities are made available to us via the internet for those who are willing and driven enough to make them work. If every person whose whole life was defined by their 4.0 GPA devoted that same amount of time into themselves, then they would surely see that there is a path that does not require a college degree.
Using what you would have spent on a degree to invest in yourself is something that many people would rather not do since it does not have the same level of security that a normal career would provide. Most Universities having their average annual return on a degree capped at around 20%, a margin that is not too hard to keep up with when in the right hands. While, many people would like to be like Warren Buffett, few people find themselves able to even achieve a fraction of his success. Along with anything else in life, a good work ethic and motivation is what ultimately leads to success. Some people would prefer working for other people since it gives them a sense of security, while other people would rather be their own boss and see how far they can push themselves.
To this day, my brother and I still view a college education as being overvalued. We always saw it as the road to take if you were okay with being exceptionally average from an economic standpoint. If you truly come from nothing and , then you have nothing to lose. If it is a debate over safety versus calculated risks, then the potential upside of the risks paying off should far outweigh that of the safety net you would have worked so hard to build. A college degree should still be the goal for many people from lower income brackets, but that is not to say that no goals should exist beyond that. If hard work really does always pays off, then who is to say that the college degree should be the be-all and end-all for not only our generations, but all the future ones as well.
Works Cited
The Economist. “Is College worth It?” The Economist Newspaper, 05 Apr. 2014. Web. 05 Apr.
Barrett, Jennifer. “You Wasted All That Money on a College Degree?” CNBC. CNBC, 19 June
- Web. 14 Apr. 2016. <http://www.cnbc.com/2015/06/19/is-a-college-degree-overvalued.html>.
Moreno, Jarrett. “How Much You Need To Work To Cover Tuition in 1978 vs. 2014.” Attn:. ATTN,
27 Oct. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. <http://www.attn.com/stories/197/how-much-you-need-work-cover-tuition-1978-vs-2014>.
Rampell, Catherine. “How Higher Education Went from Being a Public Good to a Private One.”
Washington Post. The Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2014. Web. 15 Apr. 2016. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-higher-education-went-from-being-a-public-good-to-a-private-one/2014/05/22/50263a16-e1bd-11e3-9743-bb9b59cde7b9_story.html>.