Is Higher Education Worth the Price?

               

Higher education is supposed to better you for the future finically, but in reality is it only making it harder to be finically stable? The cost of higher education is more than it should be and still continues to increase every year. Why is this? Is there something that can be done? So many people now face the question whether or not college is worth the price of admission. Every situation is different, so therefore it would be worth it in some situations but others I’m not so sure. Most students get through college on student loans, but however when they graduate they are faced with that debt that usually is more than they consume over years of working in their profession. If a college degree is such a necessity in our society shouldn’t it be more cost efficient? You would think so. The government almost makes it impossible for students who are less fortunate to get a good education, which automatically puts them at a disadvantage. When you are a child you are required by law to go to public schools, to get the general education. It is simply just the norm of how we live in America. Now college is becoming a norm, but yet it is so expensive that many who have a dream of going cannot because they don’t have the funds.  This doesn’t seem quite fair, so should something be done about it? Higher education is a great opportunity for students, but is it worth the price?

In Hacker’s essay he states that, colleges are rising on price of tuition but the quality of learning is going down. So therefore prices go up and education goes down. How is this happening? What does that mean for the future of our society? The professors who are teaching these college courses are not concerned with the teaching aspect of the job. They focus on the publication requirements. The film Declining by Degrees talks about why professors are not focused on the teaching aspect of the job. In order for the professor to maintain a certain salary they must complete a certain amount of publications of research. Their job isn’t based on whether or not the students are doing well. It is based off of their research. Is that something that is fair to college students? No, it isn’t. Higher education should be more focused on training and teaching students to be the best at their professions. I mean that’s what college is for after all right? Whenever someone walks into a classroom and sees someone in the front of the room before them, they expect that individual to teach them. They rely on them and trust that they will give them the information that is needed for the course they are taking.  However these professors are not doing that, they are simply just there to relay one simple message in how they understand the subject and if you don’t understand, well then you’re on your own. So public school teachers are paid so little, and actually teach the students, but professors are paid a large amount of money to teach college students, but yet they are not focused on what their students learn or how they come across in lecture in order to teach them in the best possible way. Basically students pay the professors just to show up and then they have to pretty much teach themselves. I mean online classes are almost the better option just because you don’t have interaction with that professor, so therefore you almost automatically depend on yourself to learn it.  Could there be another way to develop the qualifications for your profession, or must everyone who is wanting a bright future ahead of them, go through college? It depends, but what is safe to say is that higher education isn’t what it used to be, all they are about now is one word . . . money.

Colleges today are simply just not focused on what’s important. They are in it for all the wrong reasons, such as money. Most colleges are now leaning toward for-profit colleges. “Entrepreneurs like Clifford, meanwhile, have been snapping up dying nonprofit colleges and quickly turning them into money-making machines” (Carey 216). This should not be their main goal. For-profit colleges are everywhere, and they don’t see anything wrong with what’s going on. They simply don’t blame their selves for the debt that the students get into, they blame the student.  Carey states “He denies that colleges have any responsibility whatsoever for how much students borrow and whether they can pay it back. He won’t even acknowledge that student borrowing is related to how much colleges charge” (218). The colleges are not even taking responsibility for the price of admission, they are blaming the student for attaining their school, but when you apply, they make you feel as if you can afford all of the costs and they beg you to attain their school, but then when it comes time to put blame on somebody, it is not going to be them.  I realize that there are some students who are able to afford college and get through without any debt, but most people aren’t that lucky. College is something that most students enjoy but fear all at the same time. It shouldn’t result in this. Higher education should be something that students look forward too, and prepare them better for the future, but is the debt that you face really worth the education you’re getting? That’s the question you must ask yourself.

 

 

Works Cited

Hacker, Andrew and Claudia Driefus. “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admissions?” “They Say/I Say”:The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell  Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 179-189. Print

Declining by Degrees. Dir. Robert Frye. Narr. John Merrow. PBS Video, 2005. DVD.

Carey, Kevin. “Why Do You Think They’re Called For-Profit Colleges?” “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York:Norton, 2012. 215-221 Print.

 

 

 

 

 

ONE ACT PLAY : HEALTHY EATING: IS IT FOR EVERYONE?

 

*collaborative assignment along with my classmates. . .Raheim Connelly, Chelsea Noel, and Amber Keens.*

Character Guide

Radley Balko: A senior editor for the monthly magazine Reason and a columnist for FoxNews.com.  He focuses on investigative writing on civil liberties and criminal justice issues, and he depicts himself as a “small-l” libertarian in his blog The Agitator. He has also contributed to other publications such as the Washington Post and Playboy.

Mary Maxfield: She graduated from Fontbonne University in December 2010 with a degree in creative social change and minors in sociology, American culture studies, and women’s and gender studies.

Michael Pollan: A professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He wrote six books, including The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2010), and In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008). He was also named one of Time magazine’s top 100 Most Influential People in 2010.

David Zinczenko: The editor-in-chief of Men’s Health magazine and author of numerous best-selling books, including the Eat This, Not That and The Abs Diet Series.

Radley Balko, David Zinczeno, and Michael Pollan are sitting in a restaurant eating a healthy lunch together. They are waiting for their friend Mary Maxfield to arrive. She then enters the restaurant and joins the group. She sits down at their table with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts in her hands and offers them to her peers.

 Mary Maxfield: Hey guys! Sorry I’m late. I had to go to Krispy Kreme and pick up some doughnuts. Anybody want one?

Michael Pollan: Are you kidding? Why in the world would you bring doughnuts? They’re so unhealthy for you!

David Zinczenko: Yeah, why would you bring those? You know I don’t eat any kind of fast food or processed foods.

MM: Come on guys. They aren’t so bad. We are all adults and “adult human beings are allowed to eat whatever and however much they want” (446). It couldn’t hurt to eat just one doughnut.

MP: Yes but we should only eat what is good for our bodies. “In order to eat well we need to invest more time, effort, and resources in providing for our sustenance, to dust off a word, than most of us do today” (439).

Radley Balko: Michael is right, you know. “We’re becoming less responsible for our own health, and more responsible for everyone else’s. Your heart attack drives up the cost of my premium and office visits. And if the government is paying for my anti-cholesterol medication, what incentive is there for me to put down the [doughnut]” (396-397) if I choose to eat one?

DZ: Yeah, “I learned how to manage my diet” (392) and what I eat all on my own. However, “I tend to sympathize with these partly fast-food patrons, though. Maybe that’s because I used to be one of them” (391). The problem with certain processed foods, like doughnuts, is that “there is no calorie information charts on fast-food packaging, the way there are on grocery items” (392-393). Fast-food companies need to work on informing people on what exactly they are putting into their bodies, maybe even provide healthier food options in their restaurants.

RB: You are quite right David but did you know that “Senator Joe Lieberman and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, among others, have called for a “fat tax” on high-calorie foods[?] Congress is now considering menu-labeling legislation, which would force restaurants to send every menu item to the laboratory for nutritional testing (396). Instead of manipulating or intervening in the array of food options available to American consumers, our government ought to be working to foster a sense of responsibility in and ownership of our own health and well-being” (396).

MP: That is an interesting way to think about things Radley but you have to realize, these fast-food companies are what the Western diet is composed of. “To escape the Western diet and the ideology of nutritionism, we have only to stop eating and thinking that way (437). In other words instead of worrying about nutrients, we should simply avoid any food that has been processed to such an extent that it is more the product of industry than of nature” (438).

RB: Yeah sure, I guess you’re right. All I’m saying is that “we’ll all make better choices about diet, exercise, and personal health when someone else isn’t paying for the consequences of those choices” (398).

MM: Okay everyone let’s all calm down and end this debate. I do agree that “we are a nation stricken by heart disease, diabetes, and cancer” (444) and “our diet of processed foods makes us sick and fat” (444). But you should “trust yourself, trust your body, meet your needs” (446). Eat what is right for your own body. So let’s all enjoy the rest of our lunch eating what we feel is right for our own selves.

 DZ: Well then you eat what you want and I’ll eat what I want, but I’m definitely not going to touch those doughnuts.

Everyone at the table laughs and continues on eating their lunches together.

Works Cited

Pollan, Micheal. “Escape from the Western Diet.” “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in     Academic Writing: With Readings. 2^ND ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 434-441. Print.

Maxfield, Mary. “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating.” “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. 2^ND ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 444-447. Print.  

Balko, Radley. “What You Eat Is Your Business.” “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. 2^ND ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. Ney York: Norton, 2012. 395-399. Print.  

Zinczenko, David. “Don’t Blame the Eater.” “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing: With Readings. 2^ND ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. Ney York: Norton, 2012. 391-394. Print.

 

Higher Education

 

Higher Education: An annotated Bibliography

Introduction

                For our first unit paper, we are writing an annotated bibliography. I chose the subject of higher education because I have strong feelings toward some of the essays that we read in our book. I agreed with what was mostly being said, so I felt like it would be beneficial for me to research it a little further.

               The bibliography that follows includes the film, Declining By Degrees, as well as two secondary sources: an article about price of admission and about education.

               For me higher education is a necessity, and I feel that everyone should attain some form of it. The problem with the higher education is simply that the institutions don’t really set you up for success. They set you up for failure, in a sense. I feel that there should be drastic changes in the way that professors are trained. They should have a teaching background, so that they will understand how to deliver the message properly.

Annotated Bibliography

Hacker, Andrew and Claudia Driefus. “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admissions?” “They Say/I                  

Say”:The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell  Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 179-189. Print

               In “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?” Hacker states that, colleges are rising on price of tuition but the quality of learning is going down.  Professors who are teaching these college courses are not concerned with the teaching aspect of the job. They focus on the research that they are required to do. Birkenstein and Russell’s point is that, are colleges worth paying for and getting a poor education? In some cases not.

 

Murray, Charles. “Are Too Many People Going to College?” “They Say/I Say”: The Moves That Matter in             Academic Writing. 2nd ed. Ed. Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. New York:           Norton, 2012. 222-242. Print.

              “Are Too Many People Going to College?”  Murray asks the question is college worth it or not? What are students really learning when they go to college? Is it something pertaining to their career field or more of a liberal education? Murray states that there aren’t too many people attending college, there simply aren’t enough students.

              Murray talks about the liberal education and when he feels that is should be taught. He agrees that the basics should be taught to everyone, but he simply says that college is not the time or place to be teaching it. Students should have already learned this at a young age.

 

Declining by Degrees. Dir. Robert Frye. Narr. John Merrow. PBS Video, 2005. DVD.

The film “Declining by Degrees”, shows the everyday struggles that college students face. It tells the statistics of how many students start college but simply never graduate. Most students in high school didn’t really have to work hard in order to get high grades. The teacher just simply spoon fed them and made sure that they knew the material before they moved on. College, on the other hand, is different. You have to put in the hours yourself in order to learn the material. The professors are not trained to think about the best ways to teach you. They simply just give you the information and you are supposed to run with it. This is why so many students fail to finish college because they don’t know how to overcome this obstacle.

               The film talks about why professors are not focused on the teaching aspect of the job. In order for the professor to maintain a certain salary they must complete a certain amount of publications of research. Their job isn’t based on whether or not the students are doing well. It is based off of their research. Is that something that is fair to college students? No, it isn’t. Higher education should been more focused on training and teaching students to be the best at their professions. I mean that’s what college is for after all right? 

 

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/12/16/essay-arguing-major-changes-are-coming-higher-education