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Why Not Go To College? Most people in civilized societies consider university and college educations to be essential for becoming a successful person. It is assumed that those who get a degree are more intelligent, have broader views on things and understand life better. People are proudly telling their friends about their college education and argue that their children just have to get a degree as well. Those who do not have one are considered either cowboys or lazy and stupid people.
Many parents, wanting to motivate their children to study, say that those who do not study and do not go to college work for minimum wage at fast-food restaurants all their lives. In contrast, people who do study and do get good grades are usually associated with well-dressed professionals, wearing shiny shoes and snow-white shirts. Education, however, does not always mean success in life. It would be wrong to say that those who are not educated are just doomed to indecent living. Moreover, there are plenty of people who are against college education. Defenders of the idea of college education argue that people who graduate have more chances to make good living in the future.
It is considered that white-collar workers are paid more. This is not necessarily true, however. Let us for example take laborers, who perform such jobs as building, plumbing, roofing, etc. Services of these people are very costly these days. Moreover, there is a huge demand for such laborers in all civilized countries in the world. Because so many children are pressured to go to college, not enough people are left to do other kinds of jobs.
Also, we can look at the truck drivers salaries in comparison with the salaries that teachers make. They can be twice as much as those of the teachers, even though the latter have spent at least four years in college studying. Proponents of the college education also argue that four years at college are the most memorable years of people lives. College students have great parties, they enter sororities and fraternities, participate in various clubs and sports teams.
It is assumed that a person that lives such a full life being in college broadens his or her views and becomes a more complete person. This is only one side of the coin, however. The other side is that some people feel very oppressed and even ashamed of being themselves when they are in college. This is especially true for students who live in dormitories and are freshmen. Older students often make fun of the younger ones. If somebody does not fit the standard of being popular, whether it is a girl or a guy, he or she will most probably be a subject of constant mockeries and humiliation.
Parents often say that they are ready to work their whole lives in order to be able to send their precious child to college. These parents are forgetting that such decisions cause disputes and stress in the family. It is the hardest for the middle class people, who are sometimes not eligible for financial aid and cannot fully afford to pay themselves for the education. The situation is even worse if there is more than one college-age child in the family.
There is no guarantee that people will apply their education in the future, and therefore, that the money that was so difficult to earn for the parents will ever return. After getting a business education, person can, for example, decide that this is not what he or she wants to do in life and turn to something completely different. It can also be that someone decides to get a second education after realizing that the first one was not for him, which in turn, will cause even more financial expenses. College education takes at least four years of somebody's life. When you are 18 years old and you just graduate from high school, you might want to do something else than studying. Some people want to go see the world, some - to take over the family business, others want to have a rest from exams and think about what they really want to do in the future.
Also, many young people feel obligated to finish college once they have started it, because too much time and money was devoted to it already. They end up hating their jobs and regretting that they were not thinking what they were doing when they graduated from college. It is also worth mentioning that credit companies are making millions of dollars each year on interest they charge for college loans. It is good when a person becomes successful and is able to pay the loan off quickly. What about those, who study to be actors or writers, for example?
People of such professions need to work sometime to get recognition and only then they start making decent money. As an alternative to spending big amounts of money for college education, parents can invest in their children in different ways. If a person is very talented in singing or dancing, the money can be used on promotions of the talent. If a girl is good at knitting or sewing, she can be helped to organize her own business. Or if a boy knows everything about wood and makes wonderful things out of it, it may be not a bad idea to provide facilities for him to make furniture.
It would be unwise to send such children to college, spending so much money on their education, loosing four years of their productive life-time and seeing them returning to what they really like to do after all this. Only by watching TV, one can observe how many people are unhappy because they hate their jobs. They feel empty because every single day is the same, because going to work is a torture for them. These people never found themselves, they never had occupations, which they were enjoying. Even the highest paid professionals, such as lawyers and business people, realize after a certain point that there is no goal in their lives. Such people were first encouraged by their parents to go to college.
Then they were thinking about exams and research papers, not even guessing that this is not what they really want to do. When they graduated, they were driven by making big money and worked over time and on weekends. Many of such people have not had any serious relationships, and in their mid forties, when they have their houses and cars paid off and plenty of money on bank accounts, they start realizing that there is something missing. When most people define success, it is usually associated with good financial status. That is why when children get the idea of what a success is from their parents, they are taught how to measure it in terms of dollar bills, villas and yachts. American society is the one that promotes individualism very strongly.
Parents teach their children how to be independent from the very early age. When it comes to serious decisions, however, parents often intervene forgetting that their children might have different views on things. For example, every person has his own vision of success. For some, success is having a good family, living in harmony with yourself and others.
Even a lower paid job would do for such people if they have other things that are important for them or if this job brings them pleasure. So if a person already realizes that what he or she wants to do in the future will not be paid too well, why it is still needed to go to college? Only a small percentage of high school graduates know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Others are either pushed by their parents to go and get university degree or do it because everybody else does it. Society should not put this load of necessity of college education on people.
The image of beautiful life, which is only available to those who study at good universities, should not be promoted. This puts an additional pressure on children who do not want to study, putting them in a position of second-class people. One needs to keep in mind that there are children who cannot study beyond high school because of their mental or physical problems. The current attitude towards university education poses even more pressure on them than anybody else. Each and every society is composed of different people with different needs and wants. Some people see wealth and steady financial status as a priority for themselves.
These people are ready to sacrifice their personal lives, freedom and time to their work. They see university education as a first step for their successful future. In order to give them this education, their parents have to work very hard. This often causes stress and quarrels in families. The students, who have graduated with the help of loans, have to carry a burden of paying off the money for their education even though there is no guarantee that they will at the end find a good job.
So this college education can become gambling, when you first invest your money, efforts and time and than hope that you will be fortunate enough to return something. The only difference between a diploma and a gambling prize is that the surrounding society encourages the former more. It does not just encourage, it also puts the necessary pressure when needed. The extreme associations are given to children to scare them with the prospects of poverty and starvation in the horrible event of them deciding not to go to college. In reality, however, people who start working four years earlier than their studying peers become independent earlier. They can manage to live without any help from their parents.
Some of them organize successful businesses or continue the ones of their parents. Also, those people who do not go to college save their own money or the money of their parents, which otherwise could have been wasted in tuition and interest rate payments. Finally, people who want more than a good financial status are usually happier in family lives than those who are only driven by money. The explanation is that they have more time to devote to their loved ones, than those who constantly work and study.
This is not to say that work or studying is negative. It is more about finding what suits each person the best, what is a desired future, and what priorities he or she has for live.
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Research essay sample on College Education Four Years
