Salvation Through Education is No Longer in This Nation Essay Sample

📌Category: Education
📌Words: 951
📌Pages: 4
📌Published: 14 February 2022

Education has long been regarded with reverence as an institution that can expand one’s horizons, encourage abstract thinking, and foster a love for learning and academia. Schools should aspire to create the next generation of thinkers, eager to change the world for the better and exceed beyond the extents of what we know already. To train the future generation to go on to know what we don’t already is the ideal achievement as a product of higher education. Education is the sole factor in how the world progresses intellectually. However, school doesn’t produce people who want to think. People do not attend a higher education facility to learn how to think. Why go to school to learn to think? That sure does not pay the bills. Most of the degrees that are available to study are not worth the economic burden of attending college. People attempting to attain these degrees are often left with a mountain of student debt, to be chipped away with their meager salary over years. The cost of college for most degrees compared to their career salaries is not a secure investment and demotivates the students interested in these degrees which will eventually produce a society in which the only people who go to college are those who will have a high career salary.

Traditionally, a belief is held that anyone with a college degree should make more than those without one. This makes sense as one would have to spend money to better themselves thus gaining access to opportunities through the betterment of education while simultaneously gaining experience for their career. In recent years, this logic no longer applies as “Over the past two decades college costs have skyrocketed as states have systematically reduced funding for higher education, and, as a result, students have often been left with crippling levels of debt”(Colombo 112). Logically, the only way to fend off crippling debt and still maintain a living wage after periodic loan repayments is to have a higher paying job. Indeed it is, but how is one supposed to make a higher salary when their degree isn’t in demand or the industry isn’t paying very well? When the economy is not in this person’s favor, their degree becomes useless in terms of the illusioned financial stability they were promised upon completing their education. A change in career is also seemingly impossible at this point as they do not have the money to educate themselves in any other facet to change career tracks. These people remain forever swimming upwards against quicksand of crippling debt as they can’t swap careers or make a higher earning with what they have experience with. It is in the greatest likelihood that the only hope they have is to climb the ranks in their own career. Unfortunately, the wage capacity in many of these career paths is still pretty low, which leaves the burden of college debt a stain that could last decades. This begs the question: Is it worth it to get a degree one loves even if it does not pay well? An increasing number of people would answer no to that question, especially given that a lack of state funding is driving college tuition up. Less funding means that “The individual returns on higher education are more uncertain than ever because students are far from assured that they will complete a degree and more likely to accumulate debt in the process”(Goldrick-Rab). This uncertainty silently encourages students to make tradeoffs with a major that is more valuable in the long term financially. School does not want to train thinkers of the future, in fact “School trains children to be employees and consumers”(Gatto 120). Therefore as consumers, they are trained to see school through a financial lens, similarly to as if they were buying gasoline for a car. Would it be logical for a person to pay $4.00 for gas and go 15 miles rather than $4.00 for gas and go 30 miles? This is the predicament that students trying to choose their majors are facing. As consumers, they know their return on investment would be far greater in a degree that earns a higher wage and thus more students choose this route than their desired major, especially due to increased college costs.

On the contrary, one may argue that, “[Education] reassures us that we are, in fact, ‘created equal’ and that the path to achievement lies through individual effort and hard work”(Colombo 109), as opposed to which degree one chooses. This may in fact be true in the vocational world, as one can earn a comfortable wage without accruing too much debt-- a wage even more than those with college degrees. Historically, hard work may have been all one needed to any degree as jobs were abundant in more fields. However, due to the increased demand for careers in technology and engineering, many fields have grown stagnant in terms of wage growth. In the college-educated workforce, employers can not pay for one’s “hard work” but only what they are in demand of in order to make a profit, as they are products of education and are thereby consumers as well.

In essence, there is no certain way to close the gap in wages between college majors. An increased state funding would make it more attainable for those wanting to choose a major that is not as profitable, more appealing and would diversify the future workforce. In the future if we continue to raise the cost of college, students will be drawn towards higher paying majors, and eventually those industries will become oversaturated and wages will decrease. Perhaps this will increase the demand for these now lower paying majors, and conversely will raise their wages in the future. Afterall, education is an investment into oneself, and a permanent investment at that. This investment should not be limited to its return on investment because this produces a society of loyal and obedient employees as opposed to independent critical thinkers--free to pursue whatever career they choose while making a living wage that is greater than if one had not gone to college. College should not have a negative return on investment, regardless of one’s major.

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