Every fall thousands of students are sent off to college to follow their dreams, in another family member’s footstep, or just to make mom and dad proud. Many students fresh out of high school aren’t quite sure what they’re going to go to school for but know they want a higher education to better themselves for later on in life. Now if most students don’t know what career path they want to follow, how do they choose what college is best for them? They don’t. Students pick their college not by what the college has to offer academically but what it has to offer environmentally. Students flip through brochures and see primped up dorms, student life, clubs and organizations, and activities the college has to offer them. Colleges are selling their experience to potential students by offering everything they possibly can to make their campus the most appealing. They broadcast their student and campus life as the main focus when choosing a college. Colleges sell and market themselves to draw in students to raise their numbers. What has happened to higher education? It’s supposed to be about bettering yourself and making something of yourself so that once graduated you’re able to become successful. Right? No. Graduating a four year program doesn’t make anyone successful if they haven’t worked hard to earn that degree. Education was never meant to be easy and it shouldn’t be made easy like colleges do nowadays. Colleges recruit and market themselves to draw in enrollment numbers and try to make it so their campus is the best choice. It’s no longer about higher education, it’s about salesmanship, recruitment, and marketing. Since it’s no longer about higher education what does that mean for those who seek to be influential in the future. T... ... middle of paper ... ... sell their campus to potential students whether it be sports, or campus life, or maybe even academics. But why do colleges have to start getting to students at such a young age? They want to be able to allow the student to consider all of their options or they want the student to know right away that they want to attend this school because their dorms are awesome and decked out with flat screens. Colleges sell their campus and their activities to attract potential students. That being said the marketing and recruiting behind the college is the entire show. Colleges don’t pick random students to recruit they’re strategic about it and do so to benefit the best way they possibly can. Colleges make their main focus the rising enrollment rates, the rates of attendance, having a good student body with a good academic rating and they do all this by targeting specifically.
In the essay, “We Send Too Many Students To College” by Marty Nemko, he argues that, contrary to popular belief, college is not for everybody. Nemko states that colleges accept numerous high school graduates every year, when they know that if the student did not do well in high school, they have a very low chance of actually acquiring a degree. However, If someone is fortunate enough to graduate from college and obtained a degree that costed them an exceptional amount of money, it is likely that they will have to settle for a job they could have “landed as a high school dropout”. Colleges are just out for money, and the only way they can get money is by accepting countless students into their “business”, whether the student will prosper from it or not is a different story. The article reports that there is no proof that students actually learn and remember everything they get taught during their college education. In fact, some college seniors failed tests that should be easily and accurately completed, and instead of these institutions getting penalized perhaps, they are “rewarded
In Frank Bruni’s New York Time’s article, “The Imperiled Promise of College,” he argues that college is no longer a guarantee of success because students are not being properly motivated and guided into the programs that will provide them with jobs.
Students are in colleges because they are told to, or because they still want to be financially depend on their parents and not have to worry about growing up to face the real world. The author in her article writes such ideas. Furthermore, since colleges became a big industry in the 60’s, and now the number of people attending has fallen, colleges use marketing skills to bring more students in. They try to make college sound as easy as possible to make more people register. Students, once in college are not happy and drop out,...
In the article “America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree” by Marty Nemko, the author argues several different views on why higher education may be very overestimated. For starters, the author shares his opinion of what he thinks about colleges/ universities due to him being a career counselor. In continuation, The American Dream has a lot to deal with the situation of Nemko’s passage. For example, The American Dream for most people is growing up, all high school students hear is be good, go to college, get a degree. Unfortunately it all depends on the students, but others see benefits of other choices they choose to do. It’s sad to say, that over time the idea of working hard to get a Bachelor’s degree and the hope of actually going to school is not there anymore. Furthermore, for some people, when they think of The American Dream, they think of hope for bettering themselves and also helping their families. The purpose is about a Bachelor’s degree and how overrated it can be. Colleges and most universities are actually business, and they only want
As the economy evolves and the job market continues to get more competitive, it’s becoming harder to have a successful career without some kind of college degree. This creates a belief in many young students that college actually is a commodity, something they must have in order to have a good life. There’s many different factors that influence this mindset, high schools must push the importance of the student’s willingness and drive to further their education. College isn’t just a gateway to jobs, but it is an opportunity to increase knowledge and stretch and challenge the student which in return makes them a more rounded adult and provides them with skills they might lack prior to
When debating higher education, it could be considered rare to find someone who feels college, here in the United States, is being perceived and applied in the absolute most beneficial way it can be. Generally, many people feel there is at least one thing, and probably many more, that they would change about the way college is either functioning or being perceived by parents, students, or educators. In a climate where so many people feel change needs to come, many opinions on what needs to change and how and why these changes should take place have the opportunity to surface. The two articles to be mentioned in this, one written by Charles Murray and the other by Gerald Graff, tell seemingly opposite approaches, in the specifics, to bettering
Society puts too much pressure on high school students to attend a 4-year college right after graduation. Though this is an attainable goal for some, a great majority of students are not fully prepared for the demands of college. 4-year schools require an incredible amount of maturity and preparation, leaving very little room for mistakes. Schools often overlook this aspect because their main goal is to get as many students into 4-year college as possible. This is a great goal to have however they send students off to college who aren’t ready to be handle the difficult of their courses while being away from home. My senior year of high school, my family and I came to the conclusion that we were not going to be able to afford four-year college tuition. This upset me at first because I felt like all my hard work and good grades went to waste. I dreaded the thought of going to community college because my who...
24 Jan. 2010 http://www.northjersey.com/news/education/education_ne ws/82541 067_What_s_a_degree_really_worth_html> Zernike, Kate. “Making College ‘Relevant’.” The New York Times. 29 Dec. 2009.
We live the truth every day, working to keep the ideal of democratic education alive. The best reason to care for college, who goes,and what happens to them when they get there, is not what it does for society, but what it can do for individuals.like the elder guy said, you thought me how to enjoy life. What he meant is college helped him read, help him crave for works of art, heightened his alertness to color from melody. He was grateful for such an education given to him. As a person regardless of what kind of origin we have, we have the right to pursue happiness. In america today at every kind of institution education is at risk. Student are persuade and program, trained to live from task to task. To many colleges do to little to save them debilitating frenzy that makes liberal education marginal if it is offered at
Throughout the years, America has always debated whether education is needed- if it helps people succeed or not. The argument in the past was always over high school education, which is now mandatory. That decision has helped the US rise economically and industrially. Today, the US is in the middle of the same debate- this time, over college. Some, like David Leonhardt, a columnist for the business section of The New York Times, think a college education creates success in any job. Others, such as Christopher Beha, an author and assistant editor of Harper’s Magazine, believe that some college “education” (like that of for-profit schools) is a waste of time, and can even be harmful to students. Each stance on this argument has truth to it, and there is no simple answer to this rising issue in an ever changing nation full of unique people. Any final decision would affect the United States in all factions- especially economically and socially. However, despite the many arguments against college, there is overwhelming proof that college is good for all students, academically or not.
Colleges and Universities, in a way, are businesses selling financial stable futures. There are many futures to buy, some a little more expensive than others, but in all, with a college degree, individuals have the chance and opportunity to achieve certain success.
“Many institutions have begun to use hard-sell, Madison-Avenue techniques to attract students. They sell college like soap, promoting features they think students want” (Bird 372). This is a strong statement to use because it seems like some kind of item of need in everyday life for young adults. Colleges have gotten to the point where they have become so much like a business that they feel the need to satisfy the customer on what they are selling so they include all sorts of programs and curricular activities that could please the new students. Not only does it seem as if they are being pressured into attending college by their high school counselors and parents but also by their own classmates as most of them are going so many don’t want to feel out of place and they attend anyways. Due to society make it seem as if college is a necessity people feel the need to attend but also as if it is just a way to “temporarily get them out of the way…” (Bird 374) Today even some sociologist believe that college has become an institution so people just accept it without question. That’s wrong because people make it seem as if you won’t get far in life if you don’t have or get a college degree. But that shouldn’t be the case because in the past many jobs were done by people
It seems as though the majority of college students these days aren’t looking to further their education because it’s what they really want, they do it to please their parents, to be accepted by society, or because there’s nothing else for them to do (Bird, 372). These expectations have led to students being unhappy and stressed, and have pushed them into a school or a job that they don’t particularly care for.
The education we get today will help us prosper in the future, and the mor...
To quote a phrase from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, "Make me the master of education, and I will undertake to change the world." If we are to change the world simply because we have and continue to acquire the education necessary to increase knowledge; we must never forget education along without the practice of inducing what is learned is not enough to produce attainable results favorable to sustain a society in the 21st century. We must become the voice of the people by getting involved to make a difference in the world by putting into motion what we have learned.