A college degree is necessary for success

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A college degree is necessary for success
Every society needs to adequately equip its young adults with the necessary skills worth helping them to be not only responsible citizens, but also enable them to lead successful and productive lives as adults. This infers that societies are obligated to equip the young adults with reliable foundations of literacy and critical skills for career development, attributed to lifelong learning (Pathways to Prosperity 1). For instance, the United States undertook this solemn responsibility over a century ago to prepare its young adults and since then, it has remained committed to equipping the young developing minds with education, which is perceived as the cornerstone to their success (Pathways to Prosperity 1). The idea of depending on education as a preparatory instrument for success was fueled in the 20th century when “high school movement” was introduced and unequivocally adopted in the United States (Pathways to Prosperity 1). This essay will support the argument that a college degree is necessary for success. It will also highlight the counter-arguments theorizing that a college degree is not necessary for success.
There exists a correlation between inadequate education and a wider “skill gap”. According to Sam, Khatiwada and Palma, when the United States seemed to slack in its obligation to prepare millions of its young people, a deep skill gap was experienced in US economy in the subsequent years (para. 1). This was because majority of the young people lacked work ethics and other work-related skills required in the middles class wage jobs. Likewise also, Steinberg observes more education gained after high school potentiates higher wages and reduced unemployment (para. 2). Higher wages influence increased standards of living among citizens because people will posses higher purchasing power and the capability of affording their basic needs.
For a long time, personal success in life has been attributed to higher education. This is attributed to the fact that accruing more college or higher education after high school is associated with not only better jobs and higher wages but it is also associated with happier life because it alleviates the economic uncertainties regarding the future (Steinberg para. 2). Conceding with this assertion, Cunningham theorizes that “Some of the broader benefits produced by college educated citizens are relatively easy to quantify; others are more subjective but equally or even more important” (1). This means that most quantifiable societal benefits are normally linked with economic advantages that are exclusive to highly educated people. Besides the personal success, college graduates have better health and more leisure time that might be spent in advancing other family related business. This luxury is rare among the less educated, who will be forced to work for long hours in order to earn enough to provide basic needs to their financially constrained families. This means that these categories of people live from hand to mouth. As a result they can not invest their resources for more returns, and inhibits their success as opposed to college graduates.
College degree education does not only influence better health but it also leads to improved life expectance because college graduates and other highly learned people posses the ability to secure lucrative jobs that accrue them retirement privilege, health insurance covers, and other benefits which those without college degree education are likely to miss (Baum and Payea 9). This offers them an advantage of accessing better preventive health care that influences healthier and pronged living (Saxton, 7). A healthy population impacts general government success in that instead of governments spending much of its resources on providing social programs including Medicaid and Medicare, these resources can be channeled to other matters of national security and economic development projects. For instance, research indicates that the United States government spends $800-$2,000 less in offering Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment compensation, food programs and welfare among other social programs every year to college graduates as opposed to high school graduates, with both gender and ethnicity/race taken into consideration (Baum & Payea, 9).
College degree education leads to other hard to quantify societal success and benefits. The success of any society in civic-related tasks requires adequate civic education. According to Cunning, higher institutions of learning offer civic learning which is hardwired into their education curriculums and education missions (4). Civil education is important in the success of every society because it potentiates civic management, which constitutes active participation in the voting processes, community services and informed understanding of different racial and ethnic groups (Wellman 13). This infers that college degree education is important in helping young people to find their appropriate and influential spots in the democratic societies and taking citizenry responsibilities in the rapidly globalizing world.
In addition, Dee states that higher education impacts voter awareness concerning public events which originate from routine reading of newspapers and journals (4). For instance, in 2012's presidential election, impact of civic education was clearly witnessed as more college graduates participated in the audacious democratic process than high school graduates (Baum, Ma and Payea, 31). Furthermore, Baum, Ma and Payea observe that 42% of high school graduates, aged 25- 44 years participated in the presidential election as contrasted to 73% of 4-year college gradates (32). This means that the number of college graduates who voted were 1.7 times higher by contrast to those of high school graduates. This is likely to point out that, those societies with more college graduates are better governed because of their large turn up to vote in the leaders who they believe in and are worth leading them to their destined goals. In addition, the appar...