Final Draft
Higher Education
With today’s society constantly changing, college educations are more important than ever. But one issue many people face is the tough prices and the difficulty to obtain a degree. College degrees are a hard necessity to obtain for the upcoming generations. Colleges are becoming more exclusive because of the high demand.
Most jobs that pay a manageable salary require higher education or some form of a higher teaching. This has caused a substantial increase of college students and graduates throughout the United States. As higher education becomes more popular the realization of how fortunate these students are diminishes. College students are extremely lucky to be getting a higher education but “a genuine higher learning is subversive in the sense of subverting the student’s taken-for-granted world”. Ronald Barnett believes that higher education is something that young adults realize is a privilege. For a long time, even today, many people have been unable to receive a higher education due to poverty, wrong environment, and bad grades. Barnett thinks although college is not for everyone, those that are in a higher education institution are placed in an uncomfortable and rough situation. College is not easy and it is not a completely pleasant place to be it even is “unsettling; it is not meant to be a cosy experience”. The Idea Of Higher Education explains that these higher education students must grasp the idea that you may be on a path to go somewhere, you may not actually know where this path of higher education will bring you.
Getting a higher education will not necessarily tell us what our futures’ hold, “no matter how much effort is put in, or how much library research, there are no final answers”. Martha Nussbaum focuses more on the positives that come with a higher education. I agree with both Barnett’s and Nussbaum’s’ idea, this is because a higher education has both many positives but it also holds many negatives. It prepares people with the skills to be able to adapt to the changing mysterious new society. The liberal arts schools in the USA are institutions in which “students are required to take a wide range of courses in their first two years, prominently including courses in the humanities”. These classes are important because they do broaden the students’ knowledge, making them able to thrive in society and helps with a “preparation of informed, independent, and sympathetic democratic citizens”. Higher education does assist many today once they leave the world of education as Nussbaum says but Barnett’s belief still comes into play, these students do not notice how important their higher education really was. Back to Barnett’s though that there are not always answers as to what the higher education will do but Nussbaum does say “education is not just about the passive assimilation of facts and cultural traditions, but about challenging the mind to become active, competent, and thoughtfully critical in a complex word”. It is not the university’s job to tell us where we will end up but they provide us with skills to helps us figure out where we might be.
Martha does talk a lot about the perks of higher education and how it sets us up to succeed, but not much about how tough it actually is to get one like Barnett talks about. Most of the ideas taken from the two passages can coexist and not contradict each other. The ideas are slightly similar if they are broken down. Nussbaum discusses more about what happens once people are able to receive the higher education while Barnett talks about the difficulty of higher education and other problems that come with one.
Both ideas from The Idea of Higher Education and “Education for profit, Education for Democracy” hold very valid points. Some of the ideas follow another in chronological order about the effects of a higher education on people. My experience of college reflects with both of the ideas from each passage.
First Draft
Higher Education
With today’s society constantly changing, college educations are more important than ever. But one issue many people face is the tough prices and the difficulty to obtain a degree. College degrees are a hard necessity to obtain for the upcoming generations. Colleges are becoming more exclusive because of the high demand.
Most jobs that pay a manageable salary require higher education or some form of a higher teaching. This has caused a substantial increase of college students and graduates throughout the United States. As higher education becomes more popular the realization of how fortunate these students are lessens. College students are extremely lucky to be getting a higher education but “a genuine higher learning is subversive in the sense of subverting the student’s taken-for-granted world”. For a long time, even today, many people have been unable to receive a higher education due to poverty, wrong environment, and bad grades. Barnett thinks although college is not for everyone, those that are in a higher education institution are placed in an uncomfortable and rough situation. College is not easy and it is not a completely pleasant place to be it even is “unsettling; it is not meant to be a cosy experience”. The Idea Of Higher Education explains that these higher education students must grasp the idea that you may be on a path to go somewhere, you may not actually know where this path of higher education will bring you.
Getting a higher education will not necessarily tell us what our futures’ hold, “no matter how much effort is put in, or how much library research, there are no final answers”. The liberal arts schools in the USA are institutions in which “students are required to take a wide range of courses in their first two years, prominently including courses in the humanities”. These classes are important because they do broaden the students’ knowledge, making them able to thrive in society and helps with a “preparation of informed, independent, and sympathetic democratic citizens”. Higher education does assist many today once they leave the world of education as Nussbaum says but Barnett’s belief still comes into play, these students do not notice how important their higher education really was. Back to Barnett’s though that there are not always answers as to what the higher education will do but Nussbaum does say “education is not just about the passive assimilation of facts and cultural traditions, but about challenging the mind to become active, competent, and thoughtfully critical in a complex word”. It is not the university’s job to tell us where we will end up but they provide us with skills to helps us figure out where we might be.
