Is College Worth it?

Delvonta’ Pinkston

Matt Sm

KeVaughn Price

Jamar Turner

How many of you have had the idea of college ingrained in your minds?

History• The importance of a college education has been

challenged for several years now.

• With the value of a high school diploma decreasing in today’s workforce, the call for more college graduates has only gotten louder.

• However, those who see less value in a degree may be intimated by the sheer amount of loans one may possibly have to pay back after receiving said degree.

Survey Results

• Is College a priority in your life?

10 out of 10 said yes.

• Why/Why not?

Everyone stated yes for different reasons.

Examples:

It will help me to have a better life

Graduation in 2weeks

I need a job.

Summary

• The article, “The Great Debate: Is College Still Worth It” discusses the importance of a college degree. To strengthen his argument, the author (Dr. Ricardo Azziz) uses a variety of data, including surveys and polls.

• Dr. Azziz also asks his audience to examine the value of a college education. However, some have said data the Doctor uses can be seen as biased.

Summary (Continued)

• Example: More college graduates are more likely to say, “yes it’s worth it” than those who are not college graduates. (63 to 30 percent respectively)

• However, this claim does not take away the fact that the author does a great job of making a claim and supporting it with concrete evidence.

Survey Results (Continued)• Do you think you college is worth the cost, time, and

effort?

Yes = 6 Somewhat =1 Yes & No =3

Responses:

“Yes & No. I think it’s overpriced”

“Somewhat, Madonna is Costly”• Have you taken out student loans

Yes=7 No=3

Has taking out loans motivated or deferred you?

Motivated=5 Deferred=1

Summary (Matt)•In many studies, people have weighed the options of either going

to college and taking on much debt, and taking on a trade and not having the burden of paying back so debt. These studies refer to examples such as a woman by the name of LeTisha Styles who graduated from a Georgia school in 2006 with 35 thousand dollar’s worth of debt.

•Her degree; Spanish. Such degrees as Spanish and other degrees in the art and history field are considered as almost worthless in the eyes of the people writing this article. They prove time and time again how these degrees more have an affect on you as a person, not as much on your bank account.

Summary Part 2• They then go on to say how studying the hard degrees pay

of much more. Not only do they talk about the earnings from different degrees studied in college, but they talk about the colleges themselves. Colleges with not as much money to hand out to its students tend to not make as much money as the colleges and universities that are considered rich. For example, the article states how Ringling College of Art and Design has a much higher debt rate, and rate of not paying debt back then Brown University. Obama also speaks out against this problem. He says “opportunity, means making college more affordable.”

Summary Part 3•President Obama simply means that not every school has the merit money

to give out like Brown, Harvard, and other prestigious schools. Because of this the lesser schools are forced to make students pay for full tuition, yet coming out of that school they are unable to get jobs in the fields they want.

• Lastly, many reports say that the graduates coming out of colleges are not able to find jobs because they are not prepared for the workforce. Chegg a company that provides online help to students, helped with this study.

•They say that only half of students who graduate are actually ready for their job. And only 39 percent of managers say that the students are ready to be hired. So as this article states, those that offer poor value for money that is far too high have to shape up, or disappear.

Crap Test Results• This article is up to date being posted on April

5th, 2014. All links work well and the article is important to our subject.

• The article is also very reliable, it states its sources, and also is published by an accredited source. After doing other research as well, the research collaborates this articles information.

Crap Test Results Part 2• The authority of this article is for the most

part very reliable. The Economist is half owned by Pearson PLC, who make a large amount of scholarly books and websites.

• As for an author, there is not one listed which hurts the authority of this article some, but it still very reliable information. For the purpose of this article, it is a very good source to use for our topic. It is on point to the topic of Is College Worth It?

Crap Test Results Part 3

It does not have any biased opinions in it, and goes over many different aspects to the topic being presented. There is conflict in the articles, being that one side fights for college education and some argue against it. But over all, everything is written fairly and this article definitely presents a good source for our presentation. I think it deserves an A on the CRAP test. 

Logical Fallacies (Matt)•“All doubtless nourish the soul, but not all fatten the

wallet.”(false attribution)

•“Colleges that score badly will no doubt grumble that PayScale’s rankings are based on relatively small numbers of graduates from each institution.”(Red Haring, Nirvana Fallacy)

•“Murray State might look better if Kentucky’s economy were thriving.”(appeal to poverty, wishful thinking fallacy)

Logical Fallacies (Continued)•“It compares their earnings to those of people who did

not go to college—many of whom did not go because they were not clever enough to get in.”( Argumentum ad populum, judgmental language)

•““Opportunity”, said Mr Obama on April 2nd, “means making college more affordable.””(appeal to tradition, appeal to authority, argumentum ad populum)

CRAAP Test (Jamar)

• The article “Here’s why a College Degree is Still worth Its Price Tag”, was published on February 18, 2014. It is a relevant article because it articulates the worthiness of a college degree .

• The audience is clearly anyone who is interested because this could be informational for anyone. The information that she used was given from the Pew Research Center so it is accurate.

• The author is Alison Griswold who doesn’t have any qualifications as a writer but is supported by some of the people who read her article.

• The purpose of her is to explain why earning a college degree is better than just having a high school diploma.

Logical Fallacies (Jamar)

• Cause and Effect• Generaliztion

CRAAP Test (KeVaughn)

• After doing the CRAP test, I learned that the article, “Is a College Degree Still Worth It?” was not current. It was published in 2010. However, the article is relevant because it talks about the amount of debt that students will experience and what plays a role in students decision to go to college.

CRAAP test (continued)

• The Audience of this article is young people that are in college or high school students that are interested in college. The author was anonymous therefore I’m not sure if they had the authority. However, the information is accurate because it is based of statistics and there are no errors.

• The Purpose of the article was to inform students about what they are getting their selves into.

CRAAP Test ResultsThe C.R.A.A.P. revealed a number of things about the article.

The article, “The Great Debate: Is College Still Worth It” is in fact current.

It was published on January 1, 2014 and revised on March 11, 2014. All Links were functional.

It is also relevant. This is because 2014 is a time where many young adults are trying to decide if college is in fact for them.

Logical fallacies (kevaughn)

• Beginning the question• Ad populum • either

CRAAP Test Results (Continued)

• The audience the author (Dr. Ricardo Azziz, President of Georgia Regents University) targets is really the parents of high school seniors.

• The author does seem to have some authority on the subject. The author is Dr. Ricardo Azziz. He is the President of Georgia Regents University

• The information is in fact accurate. Dr. Ricardo uses a lot of data and evidence to support his claims.

• Their seems to be no spelling/grammar errors.

• The information is in fact accurate. Dr. Ricardo uses a lot of data and evidence to support his claims.

• There are miminal to no spelling/grammar errors within the article.

• The purpose of the article is to persuade.

Logical Fallacies• Bandwagon• Red Herring• Either/ Or• Cause and Effect