The Pros And Cons Of General Education

Within the past decade, more and more kids have been given the opportunity to attend school past high school, something that the previous generations have not had. In a current news release, The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that, “Of the 2.9 million youth age 16 to 24 who graduated from high school between January and October 2014, about 68.4 percent were enrolled in college in October” (BLS Economic News Release from April 2015). When a student decides to go to college, they usually think that they are free from all the basic classes that they disliked in high school, and that in college you can just take the time to focus on the ones that interest you or that pertain to your career. But, rather quickly, they find that this is far from

For example, as a computer science major, I am aware that I need a big background in both Math and Science classes so, naturally, my efforts tend to get put into those classes. However, in order to get my Associate’s Degree, I am required to have 9 semester hours in Humanities and Fine Arts. Even though these types of classes have almost nothing to do with my major, I still have to take them in order to get my degree. Some people may say that by taking a variety of classes, you are broadening your horizon and you may find interest in a topic that you were not familiar with in the past. In an article on the Washington Post, the author, Daniel de Vise, argues against Anne Neal, a graduate from Harvard, by saying, “The point of a college education is to teach students to think, solve problems and change the world, not to download a compendium of facts” (College Ratings Ignite Debate). Additionally, most students choose their major because they are interested in the subject and want to learn more in that field. If a student struggles and has no interest in history, by them taking the class in college, they most likely will not find an interest in it, and it may even make it worse as they continue to devote their attention to the classes that they think

College, in general, can be a very big investment, if not one of the biggest that you will make in your lifetime. Like all investments, you want some kind of return. You want the money that you put into it to be worth it. For example, College Data, a website that gathers information about colleges, noted that Northern Illinois University’s tuition was around $12,000. If you were to decide to go there for two years to earn your Associate 's Degree, you will be spending up to $24,000. This is excluding the price of books and supplies along with room and board. That is a lot of money considering that a huge chunk of the classes that you would be taking are required and you may not have an interest in. Others would disagree and say that colleges get a majority of their revenue from these required classes and that you simply cannot take away that amount of money that colleges need. While this is correct, by lessening the amount of required classes, fewer people will be signing up for each class , however, the college can downsize slightly in order to keep up with this decrease. This would also lead to an increase in overall grades because students would be taking classes that they have an interests in and they are more likely to put more effort into it because of