Colleges and universities in the past were limited to one type of student, upper class males, but now colleges and universities are centers of education for people of all backgrounds. People from different backgrounds and opinions congregating at these centers of education, forced many colleges to evolve. By giving colleges and universities a large variety in their students, it forces them to ditch a standard on education. Due to this fact, all colleges and universities must deliver an assortment of options in the effort of giving everyone the best education possible. Evolution for colleges and universities did not end there; due to the birth of the world wide web most colleges and universities now give the option to enroll in online classes. This rise in online education spawned a new form of university, fully online universities. Author Graeme Wood presents in his essay, “Is College Doomed?” a wonderful example of what a college or university should not be. Graeme Wood describes Minerva, an online university with the goal of stripping education to only the essentials. Minerva wants to take away campuses, sports, lectures, and most amenities leaving only their version of education. Minerva’s goal to take away options for students reduces their reach, leaving only a select few with the desire to join Minerva. Limiting students only leads to a worse education, especially since the students are the ones paying for the version of education they desire. College’s most valuable asset is their plethora of options in living, community forming, studying abroad, and variety of classes, this aspect of college in particular is what creates a perfect education for any student.
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...ng their methods against scientifically determined best practices, and having students attend university in a different place every year are pointed towards the correct direction. The most important aspect of education is having students crave education. Curiosity is the greatest force for education. “As Lewis explains, ‘Plutarch said the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lit. Part of my worry about these Internet start-ups is that it’s not clear they’ll be any good at the fire-lighting part’ (Wood 516). Speaking to any great scholar would make this point clear. Great educators practice in academia for the love of their subject. Sparking curiosity and improvement in someone will steer them throughout their life. Developing this motivation is the most complicated aspect of education. Motivation develops seemingly by accident but persists continuously.
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Show MoreWhat 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
During the first part of the article the author writes that colleges use techniques to sell themselves to students just like any other product on the market. They advertise what they have to offer and tell students what they want to hear. Students choose a school because of recreational facilities, social reputation, or by what they have heard about the academic expectations. Students do not have the money to go to college in the first place, then they end up being unhappy when they get there. A feeling of sadness exists in colleges around the country. Students do not feel of sense o...
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.
More people are choosing to further their educations, since a larger portion of employers are wanting workers with higher education degrees. Many are questioning whether an online or traditional institution is a better route. While some may say online institutions are essentially better in this day and age, in Johann Neem’s, “Online Higher Education’s Individualist Fallacy” he points out why a traditional college is more often the better route. By implementing an intellectual appeal on an audience that is craving a higher education and looking for the best way to do it, he exceptionally shows that traditional college campuses are not dead in the slightest.
The multiple choices students have today in college have made the university a party environment, resulting in complacent students. Mark Edmundson raises important questions and makes valid points in this essay that are worth thinking about. If people don’t take a look at our present college system and start thinking outside the box, the college education system will continue on its downward spiral of consumerism. It is fun to graduate high school and go to college to party and to have a comedic professor, but there is so much more to college then having fun. People need to realize that by challenging student, students can then start to recognize their own potential end become better for it. Learning and utilizing the information that is being taught in college is essential. “Everyone is born with their own mind, all that is left to do is break out of the stereotypical college student mold, and use
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.
Imagine telling a student who just graduated from college that you have wasted four years of hard, stressful and even worse, expensive work. Unfortunately, in this cynical society today, the world isn’t just full of competitors, but it’s full of greedy money-grabbing businesses. The worst businesses aren’t manufacturing or electric companies, but colleges and universities. In Caroline Bird’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money,” she examines how college has been viewed for so long as the best place to send high school grads no matter whether they actually want to go or not. She adds that students don’t realize how much college costs and are wasting their parents time and money, which is especially a horrible thing to waste. Now that the economy is better since September 11th and states have been stabilizing their budget debts, it doesn’t make sense that tuition prices higher than ever for college students.
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...
Critics contend that the influx of nontraditionals into the college student market has accelerated a trend toward the “massification” of collegiate education – that is, that it has led to a watered down pedagogy that is far below the goals and expectation of the elite colleges. Nonetheless, the improvements in education oriented toward accommodation of the nontraditional student have had the practical effect of making college more affordable and accessible to all classes of people.
In the article, “Revolution Hits the Universities” (2013), author Thomas Friedman argues that massive open online courses (MOOC’s) that are being developed by several prestigious universities are going to revolutionize learning. Friedman suggests that with online courses, learning can be extended to all types of students while pushing the physical boundaries of the classroom. The vast benefits include access for minorities such as those with low income, learning disabilities, and from poor countries, but additionally also benefits students and professors existing in the university system. Friedman’s target audience in “Revolution Hits the Universities” is middle class North American readers who are familiar with the current education systems
The right and privilege to higher education in today’s society teeters like the scales of justice. In reading Andrew Delbanco’s, “College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be, it is apparent that Delbanco believes that the main role of college is to accommodate that needs of all students in providing opportunities to discover individual passions and dreams while furthering and enhancing the economic strength of the nation. Additionally, Delbanco also views college as more than just a time to prepare for a job in the future but a way in which students and young adults can prepare for their future lives so they are meaningful and purposeful. Even more important is the role that college will play in helping and guiding students to learn how to accept alternate point of views and the importance that differing views play in a democratic society. With that said, the issue is not the importance that higher education plays in society, but exactly who should pay the costly price tag of higher education is a raging debate in all social classes, cultures, socioeconomic groups and races.
In their book Paying for the Party, Armstrong and Hamilton discuss how universities take class differences and class projects of distinct women to define what will be their college experience. In their book, Armstrong and Hamilton define class projects as individual and class characteristics that defines a person’s agenda and class- based orientation. Hence, people with similar class projects, not only shared the same financial and cultural resources, but also the same expectations toward school. (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). As a result, Armstrong and Hamilton claims that students with similar class projects end up becoming a collective constituency and a representative group for the university, whom in turn must take their interests to form a college pathway for them. Therefore, a college pathway for Armstrong and Hamilton refers to how universities are able to take successfully the interests, class characteristics and expectations of students to mold within the organizational and architecture context of the school. In a way, each college pathway is built not only to represent, but also to provision and guide the different types of students in a college.
Students go to college in search of knowledge, a new lifestyle, and the hope of a job after graduation. For many young adults, college is a rite of passage into an independent, mature new lifestyle. Not only is higher education a rite of passage, for some, it is also an opportunity to have a better life. Overall, college is a wonderful part of many people’s lives, yet the way the college education system is conducted wastes students time and money. College is basically composed of two parts: general education classes and major specific classes. General education courses are the source of wasted time and money, and should not be required of students. A few of the problems associated with general education classes are that they are basically a repeat of high school, unfortunately they can be the demise of students, they are costly, and they waste time.
Studying a university degree is one of the biggest achievements of many individuals around the world. But, according to Mark Edmunson, a diploma in America does not mean necessarily studying and working hard. Getting a diploma in the United States implies managing with external factors that go in the opposite direction with the real purpose of education. The welcome speech that most of us listen to when we started college, is the initial prank used by the author to state the American education system is not converging in a well-shaped society. Relating events in a sarcastic way is the tone that the author uses to explain many of his arguments. Mark Edmunson uses emotional appeals to deliver an essay to the people that have attended College any time in their life or those who have been involved with the American education system.
In the undergraduate educational setting, student proficiency and comfort with technology are stressed, but the essential mission of most undergraduate institutions (especially, liberal arts institutions such as Dartmouth) is on the development of the individual. The nurturing and supportive environment of most undergraduate institutions helps students mature and develop. The rave and fad of online undergraduate learning causes students to miss out on too many intangibles of an on-campus education. Our current theory on education hasn’t adequately dealt with the intricacies of a web-based education, and therefore the effectiveness of such is highly questionable.