The Price for Higher Education

                                       The Price for Higher Education: Is it Worth It? 

        Let's play a game that targets our intuition. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton adverts to money. Without scholarships to attend these prestigious schools, you are met with an overwhelming load of student debt. College tuition has increased immensely over the years, and while schools are being financially funded to their pleasured expectations, the quality of education has dropped. The ongoing argument of high admission fees being necessary has been a debate with continuous opinions. However, there have been alternatives for quality education such as Liberal Arts. This field is extracted from the usual technical professors and falls under skill-based majors such as literature, philosophy, mathematics, social and physical science. In order to presume the "better" option for investment, I was admirably engrossed by articles that implicated such an argument. Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus’ “Are Colleges Worth the Price?” discuss their perspective that high college fees would be more valid if students were being given the experience they are generically paying for. Throughout the reading, both authors make a point that the key to success must require a balance; primarily between students and faculty. To support this realism, they give examples of teachers guiding their students, creating a beneficiary relationship where both parties experience knowledge; ultimately emphasizing the point that colleges with a high financial management  correlates with the success of their graduates.

        To note the benefits of Liberal Arts, Stanford J. UnGar highlights the manner of quality over quantity in his article titled, "The New Liberal Arts". What I enjoyed most about this literacy was his mention that this type of education is beneficial to us in terms of tackling adulthood. UnGar goes about STEM majors, as they have better results in opportunities because it's a field that is mainly associated with skill development. Like Hacker and Dreifus, Stanford J. UnGar believes the result of college fees should reflect on a person’s knowledgeable gain. Despite Liberal Arts Colleges being a high expense, their net cost of attending can be lower compared to a public university because they focus more on the need-base of financial aid; making debt seem like a least to worry about problem. As my group discusses the expectations of quality education and the justice for fees, we note it's also important to receive what we strongly pay for.

        Kenyon College is a private Liberal Arts school that is known for its Higher Learning Commission. While reading the deliverance of the “Kenyon Commencement Speech”, David Foster Wallace accredits the school for guiding its students into ways of thinking and facing reality with a defense of solutions. Following in the same perspective as Hacker, Dreifus, and UnGar, Wallace idolizes that the value of education cannot be found within a career or degree, but within ourselves as we experience new pathways in life. Economic restrictions can sometimes limit layers of growth within individuals; which is where school rankings begin. There have been many cases in which intellectuals are kept hidden in their shells because they can't afford a desired interior for their intelligence. Along with the accredited favor of balanced tuition and education, “The Ivory Tower” documentary explores the college crisis in terms of a timeline shift from in person to virtual learning and its question of it being worth it. With a list of factors and ideas formed within these authors, the concept of higher education should be rediscussed. Immense tuition fees degrade people from wanting to attend, fear them from student loans, and increase pressure to excel, therefore; not mildly worth it.