Investing in Futures: The Cost of College, an Analysis of Charles Nelson's Work

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Investing in Futures: The Cost of College, an Analysis of Charles Nelson`s Work
Introduction
In today`s society, especially in the developed world, it is easy to claim that education is almost becoming a basic need especially to the younger generation. From the moment a child enrolls at the local day care to the day that they graduate as an individual who is a full-grown adult they are often expected to live a life that is fruitful and reflective of the amount of education that they have acquired all along in their formal schooling life. The sum total of the learning experiences, including the non-core curricular lessons such as sports, is expected to be worth the sum total of the investment in the education. In recent times, the cost of university has risen and so has the cost of acquiring education in the other lower stages in the system according to Slaughter (27).
This has raised concerns on the viability of acquiring this knowledge and whether the returns are worth the investment that the learner and interested parties (such as parents) have put in the education of their loved ones. Furthermore, a debate may rage on the appropriateness of offering student loans to students that pursue majors that are not paying well compared to the investment, the competitiveness of the majors in the job market notwithstanding!
Investing in Futures: The Cost of College, Q4 & Q5
As evident in Mauk, John, and Metz (333), Nelson does the calculation of how college education has risen in recent times. Well equipped with knowledge and figures from various reputable organizations such as the College Board, Nelson related the information from each of these institutions and develops an argument that offers insights into the trends in college education funding.
Unfortunately, according to Nelson the rate at which the fee is increasing is becoming worrying and may reach well over a couple hundred dollars for certain majors. He provides the reader with the opportunity to think whether this is worth the investment seeing as these recent increase in college fees is not even reflective of the rate of inflation (334). Furthermore, most of these majors whose fee keep increasing year in year out are becoming economically costly to the average tax payer because the money being used to fund the education could be a loan and may not be payable due to the unattractiveness of the course undertaken at the university.
By alluding to the "ill effects on our little civilized society" (335), the writer is developing the rhetoric that while we pride ourselves in the advancement in education and science and technology, we have deeply engrossed ourselves on the benefits that we haven`t noted the adverse effects that the same educational system is bringing unto us. Either that we are losing the whole point of going to school and acquiring an education altogether or we have failed to make the system sustainable and we ourselves, the educated, cannot seem to establish this. It`s more ironic that it seems.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Education
As already widely documented, there are number of pros and cons to acquiring education that have been fronted by various scholars and non-scholars around the world. Knowledge, for one, is known to be the power that is behind innovation and science as we know it today. Furthermore there is nothing much an individual in today`s society in the developing world can do without a formal education of some kind. However though, an analysis of the pros and cons of higher education can be looked at in order to ascertain the effectiveness of going to a higher education institution in order to meet life long demands that we shall meet in the course of our interaction with the society with respect to the professions or vocations that we shall be involved in (Johnson et al. 4 - 7).
After all, in view of the aforementioned, there must be a difference between someone in possession of knowledge and using it to impact his life and that of societies` in a positive way and those in possession of the same education but on the contrary not using it in any positive way. There are also those individuals who are not in possession of considerable levels of educational certification but are in a position to use the little they possess to impact themselves and society positively. So while debate rages on the importance of higher education, a number of perspectives, as follows, can be highlighted.
The Positives that come with Education
To begin with education to a very wide extent provides the learner with the prerequisite industrial and professional knowledge to handle issues and challenges that are faced daily in the ideal environments of the respective professions. Even though an argument may be placed forward to claim that several of the majors that are studied at school do not actually lead the learners into the profession they intend to, there is evidence that suggests that even though this happens a number of teachings and lessons in one profession can often be shared in a...