Mrs.DeDecker
English 3
Period 4
Josh Grzech
Is college the path to success? College for some is just an unattainable dream due to lack of funds, low grades, or little benefit. However, given the opportunity, anyone would be crazy to pass it up.
College leads to success in life and society by giving the student more opportunities for a higher income, opening their eyes to new ideas, and educating them to further better the world they live in.
It’s no secret that getting a college degree makes one stand out from the crowd to employers and can eventually lead to more lifetime earnings. For most, “the worth of a bachelor of arts degree [is] about a million dollars in incremental lifetime earnings,”
(Delbanco). A million dollars is about $25,000 a year extra for the rest of their working life, as opposed to someone who doesn’t have a BA. This secures someone with a bachelor of arts a spot in the middle class. Some would argue that the extra income is meaningless when there are student loans to pay off. The average student pays around
$9,000 a year for instate, public college (College Board) . This means that a bachelor’s degree costs $36,000 to earn. That $36,000 spread across the rest of someone’s life is nothing compared to the $1,000,000 extra theyearn. And student loans by no means hold someone back from living life. Sugar carried the weight of her student loan debt for
Grzech 2
half of her life, but says that she has not been defined by her student loan identity
(Sugar Response). They may be paying their loans until their late 40s, but giving a couple bucks to a bank every month isn’t a bad thing, especially when they look back on what that money got them in knowledge.
The only reason college exists is to teach. It’s not here to flush money away, compare people based on letter grades, or use as a bragging right. The things taught in college literally last forever. For one, no one is going to forget something they worked so hard and payed so much for. Knowledge in the form of a specific class isn’t the only thing that is taught though. There are many life lessons hidden in the college experience too. College comes with a huge amount of responsibility and freedom. The thought in students’ minds that what they do in college affects the rest of their life is also a huge motivator to stick to these responsibilities. These may include waking up at a certain time to get to a class just like later in life for a job, or doing homework knowing that the only people pushing for completion are professors, as opposed to high school where there were parents, teachers, deans, counselors, etc.. College also gives you the ability to grasp concepts given by highly intelligent people (professors). “‘Columbia,’ he said,
‘taught me how to
