Good / Bad Article: The Problem is That Free College Isn't Free

HAORAN ZHAO
Professor: Connor
ENGL1100
Oct 25, 2017
Source Analysis
Bad article
Kelly, A. (2016). The Problem is That Free College Isn’t Free. New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2017 from /roomfordebate/2016/01/20/should-college-be-free/the-problem-is-that-free-college-isnt-free
The Problem is That Free College Isn’t Free is the title of an article written by Kelly Andrew. Kelly is a scholar and “the director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute.” For him, college education should not be free, and the talk of making it free should not be entertained. His arguments are well thought and seem to drive the point home that indeed college education should not be free. His article appeared in the New York Times on 20th January 2016 when a panel in which he was a member was debating the issue of having college education made free.
In his article, Kelly aptly uses illustration to help his readers understand his viewpoint. First of all, he says that free college “simply shifts costs from students to taxpayers and caps tuition at zero.” He continues to illustrate how the money colleges spend yearly will not change but remain the same despite any changes. This cost, he says will continue to grow and eventually it will overwhelm the government. From his illustration, one understands that Kelly is a person who not only understands the workings of a college but also the cost of running a college institution. His illustration helps one to understand how making college free can even crash the government by increasing expenditure which as expected is always delegated to the taxpayers. Additionally, he also illustrates how California failed in its attempt at making community college cheap. While he can be mean with the details, he explicitly demonstrates how California’s state budget for higher education was strained as a result of the move to make education cheap. Eventually, he shows how many students missed their chance of getting a college education because schools “turned away 600,000 students.” Kelly’s illustrations are quite vivid and goes a long way in helping a reader understand his viewpoint.
Kelly also utilizes description in his article as he tries to drive his argument home. In his push to make readers understand why free college education is not free, Kelly describes how people could be misguided to believe that tuition prices often hinder student success. In his description, he uses the example of community colleges which despite being established specifically for the low-income student never really seem to churn as many graduates as the private institutions. His description is quite vivid, and he also helps his readers to understand his position.
His language is also one that endears him to his readers. Kelly uses simple vocabularies and seems to take his readers slowly while explaining every bit or piece of information. Choice of language can either make one’s article to stand out and attract readers or fit in the common category and be boring to readers. However, Kelly is wise and seems to want to attract as many readers as possible and hence his choice of language.
Finally, his article while presenting deep arguments is bad mainly because he supports the idea that education should only be for those who “need it most.” This means that the government should only focus on the students who are bright or who seem to be utilizing the government’s resources well. This argument is quite flawed because students develop differently. This means that some may start out as average or below average students but end up among the top students or graduates. Additionally, it would be difficult to develop criteria which would be used to group or classify students as good or bad.
Good Article
Hammond, S. (2015). Free community college will hurt higher education and students. Deseret News. Retrieved October 26, 2017 from /article/865620563/Free-community-college-will-hurt-higher-education-and-students.html
Free community college will hurt higher education and students is an article that was written by Scott Hammond. Hammond is a professor at Utah State University and also boasts of being an author. This article was published on 29 January 2015, and in it, Hammond tries to explain why making college education free can be dangerous. His article is quite thorough, and his arguments seem simplified to help his readers understand his stance.
First of all, Hammond arranges his points which makes it easier to see his topic sentences and to understand the point he is trying to make. Authors often fail to understand the importance of structuring their work, and this robs them of a lot of readers. While it is important to acknowledge that not all readers like to have the main points in bold and separated from the paragraphs, one cannot fail to acknowledge that it helps readers to grasp an author’s stance fast. Hammond, therefore, makes it easy to understand him and his arguments.
Secondly, Hammond uses the cause-and-effect strategy to help his readers understand his viewpoint. In one of his arguments, he says that “free community college will create a culture of mediocrity.” Here, he is using the causation effect to help or caution his audience against free community college. To Hammond, making education free can affect excellent students who can be persuaded to forsake their ambitions and seek to be adopted in the free education system. He also continues to say that teaching quality will also be greatly affected.
Hammond’s language is also something that helps his article greatly. The choice of language can impact and even determine whether an article will have an audience or not. In Hammond’s case, his choice of language helped him garner an audience, and he managed to communicate his ideas and opinion on the matter. Keeping one’s language simple will not necessarily guarantee you an audience but coupled with Hammond’s well-thought arguments, one cannot ignore the urge to read his piece.
This article is classified as good because unlike other authors, Hammond goes deeper and provides his readers with more evidence and seeks to make it easy for everyone to understand his stance. While reading articles on the same issue, it is clear that most authors dwell on the fact that the government will only be overwhelming the taxpayers if they are to adopt such a system. However, instead of using the same argument to develop further and reinforce his stance, Hammond uses other arguments which seem to add more weight to his beliefs and position. By choosing not to rely on the common rhetoric, he makes the article more intriguing while also helping readers see different perspective of the issue.
College education as Hammond s...