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Is College Worth It

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English
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Indiana Wesleyan University
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College education is a world of knowledge acquisition that needs to be defended in a world in which
knowledge is being treated as a commodity and the intrinsic value of knowledge is being abandoned.
The value of college education could be justified by appealing to both pragmatic and intrinsic
considerations. College education on one hand still has a utilitarian value which allows students to
succeed in the outside world. On the other hand it also contributes to the quest of human beings in
general to have a more profound understanding of themselves and the world that they are living within.
In light of these considerations, this essay tries to provide a defense of college education that refutes
the idea that the debt that is resulting from college education outweighs its practical benefits, and the
argument that one does not necessarily need to have a college education to lead the good life.
There are two arguments that are made against the value that is given to college education. The first of
such arguments alleges that the rise of college of education is continually rising to the point that there is
no proportional relationship between the cost that is incurred as a result of college education and the
kind of benefits and entitlements that students are going to get after graduating from college. It is
alleged that the cost of college education have shown a remarkable rise to the point that students are
investing in something that does not actually pay off. They cannot easily pay the debt after they
graduate and they will spend the rest of their lives in a life of debt. One especially sees that “class
inequalities in parental income, wealth, and education are mirrored in the degree to which college
students struggle with college finances” (Jackson and Reynolds, 2013, p. 337). As a result of this, it is
argued that students would rather spend their time doing something that is more productive like gaining
vocational and practical skills in business rather than enrolling in college education.
Such an argument further assumes that once students graduate from college, they are going to be
entering into a system of slavery that seriously limits their financial options and choices. They will not be
able to easily move from one place into the other, enter into intimate relations with others and even
ascend the ladder in the company that they are working in because their options are limited by the
financial choices that they have made in college. Because of this, a sufficient attention must also be
paid to the financial risks that come with all loans” (Ibid, 339). As a result of this they will be alienated
and will further become dependent on the system.
The second argument against college education proclaims that one does not need to have a college
education to find success and engage in a line of working that is fitting to one’s capabilities in the
outside world. Such an argument is especially mounted against the liberal sciences and claims that
individuals can have a better knowledge of the actual world by immersing themselves in the world of
experience rather than being engaged in endless academic debates like what is the essence of truth and
what the nature of right and wrong is. It is believed that the purpose of liberal education is to “protect
incompetent and irresponsible elites by making believe that they are nature's best as revealed by an
objective process of equal opportunity and competition”(Rossides, 1984, p. 17). As a result of this,
individuals are better off learning from experience rather than an academic degree.
This argument also claims that college education in the name of the attainment of a universal
knowledge that is not limited by pragmatic considerations and the impacts of space and time ends up
being an abstract system that does not give us an actual knowledge about the kind of life that we need

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to learn in the world of others. It is further seen that, “the school itself has been found to have almost
no causal impact on academic achievement” (Ibid, 18). It is alleged that students are wasting their
precious time memorizing facts and learning a body of knowledge that does not have a direct
connection to the world that we are living in. Consequently, human beings can learn more from actual
experience rather than college education.
Against these two arguments against college education, there are two arguments which I think
demonstrate the need to pursue college education based on pragmatic and inherent considerations.
First of all, taking a utilitarian and a pragmatic approach towards university education, we need to see
that the college setting is one in which we get the knowledge that is required in order to thrive and
prosper in the actual world. This is a world that mainly presents us with two main challenges. The first
one is the ability to have certain skills that allow us to contribute to solving the practical problems of our
community. Whether we have studied accounting, medicine or law, there is a practical knowledge that
we are going to harness from college education. In the college we get to be presented with a form of
knowledge that is synthesized from different intellectual traditions and this helps us to practically solve
the problems of our society. Above all, we need to remember that “academic programs can also engage
students in the community” (Bringle and Hatcher, 1996, p. 222). Students will be actively involved in the
affairs of their community.
The second feature that needs to be related to the practical value of education is the learning of skills
like the value of accommodation and mutual coexistence that helps us to exist in the world of others.
The world that we live in is a complex reality where we get to share a space with those that are coming
from different backgrounds. Such a form of learning can be seen as service learning and “includes
awareness, planning, prototype, support, expansion, and evaluation” (Ibid, 223). In such a context since
the college setting presents a space where we interact with other students from different backgrounds,
it allows us to cultivate an intercultural skill that allows us to uphold the equality and dignity of others.
Secondly, the value of college education could also be justified by appealing to the inherent and the
intrinsic value of education. Human beings have an inherent desire to discover and understand the
world that they are living in. such a quest for knowledge is not simply dictated by a pragmatic
consideration and emanates from the desire to discover our place in the mysterious world that we are
living in. as ancient philosophers like Aristotle have shown, all human beings have a desire to know the
world. They are not looking for a material benefit in being engaged in such a quest for knowledge. It also
helps us to identify the intimate relationship that is found between the quest for knowledge and the
upholding of moral values. This emanates from the affirmation that “knowledge comes into the world
barren of morality or social values” (Shoben, 1968, p. 63). In such a context, since college education is
oriented towards different traditions of knowledge, it can give us a knowledge that can help us to
understand ourselves as rational beings that lead a communal life and also the natural environment that
we are living within. College education as such satisfies our intrinsic desire for knowledge.
Such a value of college education becomes more evident when one sees that in our world human beings
experience the problem of trying to discover the meaning of life and the kind of life that they should be
leafing just like they have a desire to meet material goods and desires. Human beings are not simple

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College education is a world of knowledge acquisition that needs to be defended in a world in which knowledge is being treated as a commodity and the intrinsic value of knowledge is being abandoned. The value of college education could be justified by appealing to both pragmatic and intrinsic considerations. College education on one hand still has a utilitarian value which allows students to succeed in the outside world. On the other hand it also contributes to the quest of human beings in general to have a more profound understanding of themselves and the world that they are living within. In light of these considerations, this essay tries to provide a defense of college education that refutes the idea that the debt that is resulting from college education outweighs its practical benefits, and the argument that one does not necessarily need to have a college education to lead the good l ...
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