Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
equal opportunities in education
equal opportunities in education
an essay about equality for education
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: equal opportunities in education
Historical Trends at American Colleges and Universities The colonial colleges were among the first colleges created and were established under religious auspices. It was believed that an educated ministry was needed to establish Christianity in the New World. Harvard College was established in 1636, followed by Yale, William and Mary, Princeton and King ‘s College later to be called Columbia University and there were also others. The general colonial college curriculum included Latin, Greek, Hebrew, rhetoric, and logic. Later philosophy, metaphysics, ethics and mathematics were added. The argument later arose that colleges for agriculture and mechanical science should be established with support from federal land grants, thus the Morill Act of 1862 was created. This act granted each state 30,000 acres of public land for each senator and representative of Congress and the income from this grant was to support state colleges for agricultural and mechanical instruction. Many leading state universities today originated as land-grant colleges. It is noted that the largest and most popular higher education institutions is the two-year community college which originated as junior colleges in the late 19th and 20th century. These junior colleges were reorganized into community colleges with the broader function of serving the needs of their communities’ educational needs. The greatest growth in American higher education came after World War II with the passage of the G.I. Bill in 1944. To help readjust society to peacetime and reintegrate returning service people into domestic life, this bill provided federal funds for veterans for education. Seven million, eight hundred thousand veterans took advantage of this bill’s assistance to attend technical schools, colleges and universities. This increased growth in higher education enrollments that has continued through today. Since the 1980’s the cost of attending colleges have increased rapidly. Rising costs of for Medicare, highways and prisons have caused many states to reduce a percentage of their budget for higher education. Colleges and Universities currently face a very serious challenge: 1. The need to contain escalating costs so that higher education is affordable for most people. 2. The need to maintain high standards of instruction while educating la... ... middle of paper ... ...s assimilationists’ past. Recent Historical Trends Some recent historical trends just to list a few are movements toward gender equity, equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities, increased professionalism of education, and reduction of violence in schools. Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments to the Civil Rights Act and the Women’s Educational Equity Act of 1974 prohibited discrimination against women in federally aided education programs. In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, which improved opportunities for a group of children who had previously lacked full access to a quality education. War on Terrorism On September 11, 2001, foreign terrorists hijacked and deliberately crashed commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The attack and resulting loss of nearly 6000 lives have changed the way Americans view the world and life in their own country. This was mentioned to show how education is part of our ongoing culture, how schools have responded to crises in the past and how schools can promote democratic values and multicultural understanding in a time of crisis.
Today Title IX is still critical in education because women continue to lag behind men when receiving degrees in certain fields such as the math and science disciplines. 1 out of 5 women achieve the doctorate degrees in computer sciences and engineering and physics. "Schools are continue to downsize many of the affirmative action programs that are responsible for increasing access to higher education to minorities and women, a particular problem for women of color" (source c).
Community colleges and vocational tracks are not wrong about the high cost of traditional higher education. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, one year at a public, four-year institution costs upwards of $23,000 on average, while private institutions will cost nearly $10,000 more on average. Coupled with the fact that prices at public institutions rose 42 percent and private institutions rose 31 percent between 2001 and 2011, it’s not a shock that parents and students alike worry about paying for college. However, this won’t always be the case, as this rise in prices simply cannot continue the way it has. Eventually, people will be unable to pay the price that colleges charge. They will either settle for com...
Allan and Davis mention the spike of college cost since 1995 has increased by 150 percent; student debt has increased 300 percent since 2003, and with education, second to the mortgage industry in the nation’s debt, America needs to redirect their attention to the future and focus on education (Allan n. pg). Budget cuts from national to state
One of the major pieces to becoming a successful business man/woman is receiving a college education. A college degree is viewed as a necessity and is slowly becoming an unreachable goal for some people. Most believe that the cost of college has been rising and continues to rise, and that the rate of increase is outpacing that of other costs (NAICU). As the cost of college rises, families have to change their way of life to be fortunate enough to send their children to college. Along with changing how families’ live, many other problems are produced in various ways. The cost of college should be lowered because it imposes a burden on parents and their children, causes some students to alter their choice of which college to attend, and prevents some students from even going to college.
The skyrocketing price of college tuition is causing a tremendous concern over whether higher education will be a viable financial concept to the average citizen over the next decades. Some families have opted to explore different means of obtaining a higher education for their children as these costs escalate. There is overwhelming evidence that colleges need to restructure the way they are run because tuition prices are increasing at a rapid rate causing changes in the way students fund their education and in the way the government provides educational subsidies.
Students who attended these institutions of higher education were typically born into a wealthy family, where the individuals already had made a name for themselves. They survived college, as disruptive students, because college was not a necessity for them to succeed in life. Referring to Harvard College, in his family’s newspaper, the New England Curant, in 1677, Benjamin Franklin wrote that it had become a “rich man’s school, a place that wealthy parents sent their sons to, where, for want of a suitable genius, they learn little more than to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a room genteely” (Lucas, p. 109). Prior to the American Revolution, higher education did not impact the majority of the people first hand. It is estimated that no more than one in every thousand colonists attended any college present before 1776 (Lucas, p. 109). This supports the idea that college was only available to those individuals who had enough money to attend college simply for the ability to move up the social ladder.
States do not have a legal obligation to provide Community College schooling resources as they do for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for example. However, there is a growing sense that an associate’s degree is today the minimal credential necessary to attain social and economic security. An example is evident during the Clinton administration and Bill Clinton’s initial proposal for the federal “Hope Scholarship.” In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in 1996, Clinton proposed a tax credit for the first two years of college to “make at least two years of college as universal as four years of a high school education is today” ( Bill Clinton's view on education, from acceptance speech. 1996) The implementation of the “scholarship” as a tax credit provided a boon for the middle class more than it helped low-income students enter college demonstrates the tension between the rhetoric of access and the politics of resource distribution. The growing imp...
“College education is only a mere rite of passage these days and a capstone to adolescent party time” (Henry). This is one of the things William A. Henry had to say about College Education, especially community colleges. William A. Henry was a critic, columnist and an author. In his career he received several prizes including the Pulitzer Prize as a drama critic for Time Magazine. He also wrote several books including his final and controversial book In Defense of Elitism which he talks about the tension America always had between elitism and egalitarianism. In those terms he sheds some light on education. Stanley Fish who published an article Colleges Caught In a Vise stating that colleges are offering an inferior product, in other words- an education that isn’t worth anything. Stanley Fish is a literary theorist, scholar, author, and was a professor in several Universities but now a Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School and a dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois. What these two authors had to say about college raises a question whether community colleges should exist anymore. William A. Henry even states that community colleges should be closed and the number of high school graduates that go on to college should be reduced by about fifty percent. I agree with William A. Henry that the number of community colleges should be reduced down in our education system because first: a community college certificate has no value and oversupply of college graduates is affecting the economy. Second, community college tuition and expenses are climbing and in result continuing to offer cheaper education. I will analyze what community colleges are currently doing wrong, why they should be closed, and r...
For at least a century, tuition at selective private colleges and universities has risen annually by two to three percent more than the rate of inflation (Ehrenberg 1). Tuition increases at public colleges have slowed slightly, but the cost is still out of reach for low-income students. Financial aid has dwindled. A select group of colleges and universities are cutting their tuition; (Carapezza, 2013) however, student debts can stick with a person, even after graduation. Due to a university’s cost, a handful of tuition is passed down to the students. With college follows the higher cost of living. Incomes are limited due to low paying jobs. During my first week in college, everything about college was an adventure. From what to expect in college, to the adaptation of the college environment, the college experience seemed nerve wracking at first. However, the lessons from college proved to be beneficial towards my life. At that moment, not only have I learned about the college experience, I’ve also learn about the burdens of college tuition, how it can impact a person’s life, and as well as being a successful college student. Also, college tuition has escalated my worries toward the future. To help pay for higher education, the federal government offers tuition tax credit programs (College Board, n.d). Anyone who can afford to pay for thousands of dollars can usually ignore it. As for everyone else, when every penny counts, questions will be raised about where every penny is going. If tax dollars were to be invested to either the national health care or the military, for one, transferring taxes to health care will ensure the public's health; however, since taxes was invested in health care, there will be fewer doctors towards a m...
In 1960 there were 315 two- year institutions had enrolled 392,000 students, but by 1976, tactically tripled with 926 two-year institutions and above 4 million students (Breneman, Nelson 2-3). These were when community colleges became booming. For one, there were several reasons why the rapid growth: baby boom, pioneered the "open door" philosophy, and it is great for older part-time
In the U.S college really started in 1636 when the colonists arrived in Europe and found the “New College” which was later called Harvard
The concept for community colleges began in the latter part of the nineteenth century with a period of time that is coined as the “Great Scare” a period of economic depression in Europe and North America. Rev. J.M. Carroll then president of Baylor assembled a meeting of the Baptist colleges in Texas and Louisiana to address the issues of lack of finances to support the Baptist institutions in both states. Carroll introduced the idea that the smaller colleges reduce their curriculums to just two years and Baylor University would provide both the third and fourth years. This reduction required fewer resources in which they would need to operate drastically reducing the cost.
Most colleges have become co-educational, but this didn’t occur until the late 1900’s. Some colleges like Yale and Princeton didn’t become co-educational until 1969. (“History of Coeducation”, par....
With the rapid growth of college tuition, it has become an important issue in higher education. College Tuition is simply defined as the charge or fee for instruction, at a private school or a college or a university. Most people agree today that college tuition is too high or that it needs to be completely dismissed. There are some however, that may disagree with the claim about college tuition and state that college tuition is necessary for college growth, and it’s primary purpose is to pay for college expenses to support the institution financially. Research shows that college tuition is too high and that debt has become a standard in America after attending post-secondary school.
Discounted Dreams: High Hopes and Harsh Realities at America’s Community College. Prod. John Merrow. PBS Home Video 2007. DVD.