Is College Failing the American College Student

Jeffrey Davis

ENG 131.02

Professor Lucas

7 May 2014

Is College failing the American College Student

Many Americans fresh out of high school, make the major decision to go to college after high school. with the price of a college education in America on the constant rise ideally the quality of education would also be on the rise. many would agree that the quality of eduction is not on the rise, and they would also agree that it is a real problem for the American college student. some of the main problems with the American college system is it is overpriced, declining quality of education, and ways to improve the college system.

With tuition more than doubling in a generation at both public and private colleges, the question is more prevalent than ever, are students paying to much for a sub par education?(Hacker And Dreifus, p. 179) while prices for college is increasing, the quality of the education obtained is not improving, or even in some cases getting worse. due to higher prices many students are dropping out of college, and just finding a minimum wage job, because they are not able to afford college even after all of their scholarships, grants, and loans. When students or their parents are having to dish out a few thousand dollars every semester of their college career it gets very tiring and very expensive very quickly. Lets say your tuition is $40,000 a year, but you are only approved for $38,000 a year in financial aid, if you go for the traditional eight semesters, you are dishing out $12,000 before you even graduate. Then you will also have to pay back all of the loans that you took out in your financial aid, which would be approximately $10,000 to $15,000. Those bills will start coming in the mail anywhere from three months to six months after you graduate, whether you find a job or not. All of this, is why many people avoid colleges.

While college tuition has continued to increase, the quality of education offered at many colleges, and universities across the United States, has begun to decline. Many public universities have class sizes of 200 and up. There is not very many people who can actually learn in that type of environment. If colleges, were able to keep smaller classes, then it would change a lot of things in the American education system. When a professor is expected to stand in front of 200 students, and teach them for example, Shakespeare, it is not going to be interesting to the students, but you take that same professor, and put them in a class with maybe 20 to 25 students with the same Shakespeare play the class size of 20 to 25 students is going to have a deeper understanding of the play. Whenever a professor is given a smaller class size they are able to experiment more, and find ways to help the students understand the material better. The professor will actually get to know the students, and will be able to answer specific questions, instead of answering questions that the professor thinks people may have. Additionally as Matt Groening points out in his cartoon “The 9 Types of College Teachers” there are many problems with the stereotypical college professor. From the Steady Droner to the Nice Little Nobody, many people would agree these are the types of professors you will see in college. This is a problem, because if all professors do exactly one of these, and doesn’t attempt to step out of the box every once and a while they are not able to experiment and see what is going to work better for the students in the long run.

While many colleges have the problems listed below there are quite a few colleges, that have been striving despite having to increase tuition. When they increase tuition they are actually improving the eduction of their students. Many of these schools have some sort of a Liberal Arts curriculum, which means the students have certain classes they have to take from all sorts of different categories. These schools have more success, because they are looking to improve the person, not just pump out another graduate for numbers. When students are forced to take courses in subjects that they don’t particularly like, they are more able to do tasks that they wouldn’t normally do in their line of work after college. You are not always going to be doing what you came to college to learn. Most college graduates are going to start at the bottom of the totem pole in a company. When you are at the bottom of the totem pole you are not going to be doing what you hope to do for the rest of your life. You are going to get all the jobs that nobody else likes to do. With a liberal arts education you are forced to take classes you don’t want to take, you have to take this many English classes, and a foreign language. These might seem like useless things depending on your major, but many with the two examples listed above English classes teach you how to write a resume, and foreign language classes teaches you to be more open to things that are not in your comfort zone.

While the American college system seems to be currently failing majority of America’s college students, there is still hope for the youth of America.

Works Cited

 

Groening, Matt. “Lesson 18: The 9 types of College Teachers.” School is Hell. New York: Pantheon, 1987, Plashing Vole. Plashingvole.blogspot.com, 25 Oct. 2012, Web. 12 Feb. 2014

Hacker, Andrew, and Claudia Dreifus. “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission.” Trans. Array They Say I Say, The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. . 2^nd Edition. New York: Norton, 2014. 179-189.Print

Murray, Charles. “Are Too Many People Going To College?.” Trans. Array They Say I Say, The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. . 2^nd Edition. New York: Norton, 2014. 222-242. Print.