College Education or a Buyers Market for Success Essay
Both Louis Menand’s “College: The End of the Golden Age” and Joe Quenan’s “ Matriculation Fixation” present us with many misconceptions that the ordinary public and those employed by our educational institutions struggle with. We are faced with many challenges within our institutions of higher education because of the many contradictions that they embody. We need to re-evaluate our goals and missions within our nations universities to produce graduates that will better help society as well as themselves.
Education, a word that can mean so many things. While in the past thirty years colleges and the expanse of knowledge that they offer have continued to evolve, oddly enough, the concept of a four year liberal arts education has remained relatively unchanged. The truth of the matter is that vast majority of students will have very different college experiences. Even though almost half of all Americans have attended college at some point in their lives, scholars in the field feel as though higher education is hopeless. The higher education system has been growing steadily since the 1970’s and with this significant increase in the number of students and ultimately graduates, the value of most degrees has been severely lessened. This, coupled with other outside influences has sent our education system into a state of depression. We need to reassess our reasons for pursuing higher education, and adjust our expectations of what a college degree can and cannot do. Read more…
