CE English 1010
19 October 2021
Is College Worth It?
The authors with the loudest voice for the opinion that today’s universities are failing to
provide a cost-effective investment for students are Andrew Hacker and Claudia Driefus. They
assert that “Graduating with six figure debts is increasingly becoming common.” (Hacker
and Driefus) They point out that without reforms to the financial model used by most
universities, students will be burdened by debt brought on by large loans.
An author that agrees about the increasing cost of higher education is Sanford Ungar. Ungar
states, “Many families are indeed struggling, in the depths of the recession, to pay for their
children's college education,” which agrees with Hacker and Driefus (Ungar).
Two of the authors who disagree about college leading to a six-figure debt are Liz
Addison and Robin Wilson. Addison states that community colleges “offer a network of
affordable future of accessible hope, and an option to dream.” (Addison) Wilson likewise
disagrees that college costs are sky-rocketing, stating, “In fact, despite stories of a large number
of students who face gargantuan debt, about a third of graduates leave college with no debt at all
for their education. Of the 65 percent who face debt, the average they owe is around $20,000,”
she states. (Wilson)
The author with the loudest voice for the opinion that college isn’t for everyone is Charles
Murray. He asserts that “The income for the top people in a wide variety of occupations that do
not require a college degree is higher than the average income for many occupations that require
a B.A.” (Murray)
Two authors that agree about alternative paths to great jobs existing outside of college are
Rick Perstein and Mike Rose. Perlstein suggests that young adults should only pursue a college
education if they are highly motivated. If not, learning will be worthless to them. “College as
America used to understand it is coming to an end,” he states.
(Perstein). Then, Rose agrees with both of them when he states, “When we devalue the full range
of everyday cognition, we offer limited educational opportunities and fail to make fresh and
meaningful instructional connections among disparate kinds of skill and knowledge.” (Rose).
The author with the loudest voice for the camp that favors a liberal-arts education over a careerpreparatory education is David Foster Wallace. He asserts that a liberal arts education teaches
you "to be just a little less arrogant...This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of
learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what
doesn't. You get to decide what to worship."
The authors that agree with Wallace are Hacker and Driefus, Perlstein and Ungar. Ungar
states, “It may be that studying the liberal arts is actually the best form of career
education.” (Ungar). Then, Hacker and Driefus agree with both of them when they state that the
college years should be “a time to liberate the imagination and stretch one’s intellect without
worrying about a possible payoff.” (Hacker and Driefus).