“In the 21st century, the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education,” President Obama said in his 2010 State of the Union Address. A public university is so named because the benefits of higher education not only better the individual student, but better society as a whole as well. Through public research that influences social change, civic education and promoting ‘public good,’ public universities benefit society as well as students.
Part of the shared value higher education creates for all is the ‘engine of social change’ described on page 9 of Lagemann and Lewis’ What is College For? This ‘engine’ of people that become more productive because of a college education spur innovation and invention, and become, “repositories of culture as well as sources for cultural creativity,” Lagemann and Lewis, 9. This is the ‘public’ benefit that higher education provides all people, not just those who received the schooling or training. When that public benefit beings to disappear, however, one begins to question the value of supporting higher education with public funds—taxes.
A big difference between private and public colleges and universities is that taxes are used to support a public school, called a public charge, while private schools are not supported by the government. Many times, the goals of a public and private university are similar; however there must be some community gain from a public school, while a private school need not provide any public benefit. This could allow for a slower, more open movement in a private school setting not mandated by public need, while public institutions are often fast-paced, large and focused. While there are advantages to focusing on a narrower range of ideas and goa...
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...hy was pushed out of the scientific atmosphere, leading to a separation of how science could be used to approach social issues and citizen’s responsibility to those problems.
Though public universities exist to promote the common good and improve all citizens’ lives, many people feel that the benefits of public higher education have been decreasing. Specifically, the goal of civic education in the college and university setting has all but nearly disappeared, and that has caused people to rethink the value of public funding of colleges and universities. However people may feel, there is no doubt that the value universities create in the areas of scientific research and innovation is unmatched by any other institution. This obligation to provide significant value to the public as a whole has not diminished over the history of public higher education, but instead
To begin with, there are valid points made. For starters universities need to stop considering themselves as businesses and stop putting business first, and
Colleges and community colleges have their share of faults, and these three writers express what should be done to repair the broken system; if Carey were to attempt upholding his view that for-profits have their place in education, the result would be complete annihilation. Yes, for-profits benefit those who reap gains from the system, but Hacker and Dreifus and Addison would tear apart this view with the true meaning of education. Educated graduates with jobs that help create a better society are essential to the function of societies all over the world; therefore, colleges exist for the purpose of producing these graduates capable of making a difference. Students need education—students are the purpose of education. Although Carey’s claim—the government should not interfere with the success of for-profit owners—has integrity, Hacker, Dreifus, and Addison all believe that it is not in the right place. In their view, for-profits have no value to anyone but the owners. In sum, Carey would be shut down with the reality that an education system with the central purpose of earning profit does not value providing an education that benefits both students and society—the main focus is money. In turn, what is available could hardly be considered an education, according to Hacker, Dreifus, and Addison. However, the marketing scheme of for-profits still successfully entices people to enroll by offering accessibility with quick and easy degrees, which would infuriate Ungar and
What stands out about American universities today? Is it the academic opportunities offered to students, experienced faculty, or strong sense of community? Or...perhaps they have lost their focus. It is not uncommon for universities to focus their efforts and budgets elsewhere; by building state of the art gyms, for example, remodeling luxury dorms, grooming campuses, or creating more management positions. College students and professors alike are subject to the nationally occurring changes in higher level education. Colleges are becoming commercialized and tuition is rising, but is the quality of education improving? In “Why We Should Fear University, Inc.”, Fredrik DeBoer is able to provide a personal take on the issue of corporate domination
The article, The Value of Higher Education Made Literal by scholar Stanley Fish focuses on sharing his opinion of higher education and what it has become in recent years. Mr. Fish’s argument is essentially over the “logic of privatization” where students are pictured as “investors” or “consumers” in courses of study that maximize successful employment outcomes. He also believes arts, humanities, and social sciences are overlooked while study courses in science, technology, and clinical medicine are prioritized. Fish also strongly believes the value of higher education has changed due to the desires of students over time, desires of becoming extremely financially secure enough to buy more than needed to justify years of money and hard work applied when in school.
It should not be a surprise that many people believe that a college degree is a necessity in today’s world. We are taught to believe this at a young age. The average citizen will not question this statement due to how competitive the job market has become, yet does graduating college guarantee more success down the road? Peter Brooks is a scholar at Princeton University and publisher of an essay that questions the value of college. He obviously agrees that college can help securing a job for the future, but questions the humanities about the education. He uses other published works, the pursuit of freedom, and draws on universal arguments that pull in the reader to assume the rest of his essay has valid reasons.
Is college a beautiful illusion of that if we go then all our problems in life won’t be so hard or is it actually is a place people go to shape and mold themselves into better people. Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, in their essay, Are Colleges Worth the price of Admission? Says that whether or not you go to a public or private institution, the cost of attending college has doubled, compared to when our parents and every other generation before us went to college. They went on and made a few good point by saying how schools should engage the students more, also how they should replace tenure with multiyear contracts, but their arguments about postgraduate training and spreading donations around is where they might had begun to lose their audience.
When people think of college, they often think of their education like they had when they were in high school and grammar school. But colleges and universities aren’t schools. They’re all businesses. College isn’t paid for through taxes or government funded. It comes from our pockets. But other countries like Australia, England, Ireland and Germany run their colleges and universities just like a high school. Every person goes to the same college and it’s paid for through their government taxes. A college education is no longer an option, but it’s vital. The competition of getting a decent job is increasing and it’s almost impossible to find a high paying job without a bachelor's degree, which means more money goes to the already rich universities. It’s going to take a long tim...
In a letter to columnist Ann Landers, a college professor wrote about his views of the education system. He feels that universities have turned into businesses where teachers are just looking for money and students are just looking for a piece of paper with a title on it. He says that the students of today think they are automatically entitled to a degree because they pay tuition (Depressed Old Prof. 3-B). Adding to the profit motive for schools is the government which, for the p...
Newman, John Henry. "The Idea of a University." The Presence of Others. 3rd ed. Ed. Andrea A. Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000. 126 - 131.
The biggest question or dispute regarding the cost of higher education is finding the appropriate monetary and economical equation to determine the percentage of personal and public responsibility. The above debate has been in question since the 1800’s when Thomas Jefferson stated; "I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness ”. Those important words that called attention to the importance of having an educated citizenry in order to preserve democracy are until this day, words by which legislator...
Over the past few years, a debate has emerged on whether or not the United States of America should provide free college education for its citizens. This topic is very controversial; however, the issues that some people see in free higher education actually have solutions, and the benefits of free college clearly outweigh its risks.
A diverse array of arguments concerning the costly price of college and its equivalence to the ultimate result of attending persists along a vastly debatable spectrum of economic and social influences. Those seeking a better standard of living by the means of higher education often find themselves in conditions that are more adverse than their lifestyle prior to attending college. Efforts to dwindle the expenditure of college education have the potential to produce a heightened reality of the world, with intellectual knowledge as a pivotal key. The expensive cost and limitability of a college education has potential to invoke incentive to work harder in one’s studies; however, the cost can crush individuals enrolled, obtaining a college degree does not ensure employment, and an excessive number of individuals are hesitant to attend college in the first place due to the prevalent debt tied to its completion.
As colleges’ funds dry up, colleges must turn to the public to further support higher education. By raising state taxes, colleges can collect funds to help improve the school’s budgets. The state provides funds from the taxes for colleges to receive a certain amount for each student currently enrolled. All community and traditional four year colleges collect these funds in order to maintain the school’s budget. As reporter, Eric Kelderman states, “less than a third of colleges’ budget is based from state taxes”. The school’s budget is how colleges are able to provide academic support programs, an affordable intuition, and hire more counselors. Colleges must now depend on state taxes more than ever for public colleges. Without collecting more funds from state taxes, as author, Scott Carlson explains how Mr. Poshard explains to senators “our public universities are moving quickly toward becoming private universities…affordable only to those who have the economic wherewithal to them” (qtd. in.) Public colleges must be affordable to anyone who wishes to attend. If colleges lack to provide this to students, it can affect dropouts, a student’s ability focus, and cause stress. The problem of lack of funding is that colleges have insufficient funds. Therefore, the best possible solution for the problem of lack of funding would be increasing and collecting more funds from state taxes.
Individuals who attend institutions of higher learning offer many benefits to society as a whole. Some social benefits realized from those with a higher education include increases in the individual’s volunteer activity, as well as increase in overall individual health and well-being. A report from Analyst Diana Wardell, entitled “The Benefits of Higher Education,” states that individuals who did not complete high school made up 9.9% of those who volunteer their time, while those with a high school diploma made up 21.7%. Those who have some college experience made up 34.1%, and those with a Bachelor’s Degree made up 45.6 percent of those who volunteered their time. Additionally, those with a high school diploma, with an income ranging from $35,000-$54,000, 62%, report to be in excellent or very good health, while 73% of those with a Bachelor’s Degree, in the same income bracket, reported to be in excellent or very good health (Wardell, Benefits). Similarly, an article e...
Universities have been established to provide higher quality education to those who want to pursue their dreams and their choice of career, or expand their knowledge. Universities therefore provide positive externalities, or influences, which can benefit everyone in society. Also, education is a merit good that is under-provided as those who consume education do not consider the long term benefits that education provides, such as higher-paid jobs, but rather the short-term benefits possibly because of lack of information or knowledge of what higher education can provide. There are many ways to provide financial resources for universities, such as tuition fees, subsidies, donations and aids, and selling research, to name a few. Fees can be quite