Is College Worth our Time and Effort?

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In our society, many people can build different types of careers by holding various jobs in fields such as education, science, business, political, entertainment, and much more. However, there is one particular question that comes up when we look at those people holding jobs we aspire to have, “What did those people have to go through to get those jobs?” Those people probably earned a college degree to get their high-level job that requires years of learning and preparation to acquire, such as a doctor or a programmer. With colleges, students have a means of landing that dream job of theirs or maybe discover that they had a passion for a different kind of career instead. Although, many students have to endure years of stress and pressure in college before they can get their degree or figure out what they want to do for a living. In William Zinsser’s essay, “College Pressures,” he “sees four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” (Zinsser, 452). From what Zinsser’s quote, college students have many obstacles and barriers to overcome to get a degree: large financial costs to pay for tuition and other college expenses; parents wanting their children to get a job in a particular field that the children might not be interested in; and pressure to do as well, if not better, than their peers to stand out in a competitive environment, even if it meant overworking themselves to near exhaustion. With all of the pressure and difficulty students have to put up with in college, I do not think that college will be worth it for many people.
When many young students enter high school, they begin to take their first steps on deciding what they would want ...

... middle of paper ...

...orking for a degree.

Works Cited

Peralta, Katherine. “College Grads Taking Low-Wage Jobs Displace Less Educated.” Bloomberg. 7 Mar. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. < http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/college-grads-taking-low-wage-jobs-displace-less-educated.html>.
Porter, Eduardo. "Dropping Out of College, and Paying the Price." The New York Times. 25 June 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2014. .
United States. Department of Education. National Center for Education Statistics. Tuition costs of colleges and universities. 2012. National Center for Education Statistics. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
Zinsser, William. “College Pressures.” Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. 12th ed. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. Boston: Bedford. 2012. 450-56. Print.

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