College Worth the Price

Joseph Maldonado
Prof. Petitfrere
ENG 101
April 24, 2013
College Beneficial or Waste? Charles Murray “Are Too Many People Going to College”, argues by admitting so many incaple and uninterested students into traditional four-year programs, schools are dumbing down the educational experience. Murray basically states that we deprive those who don’t belong in college an education that will pay off. Sanford J. Ungar argues the misperceptions which exist in our society on how worthless the Liberal Arts are nowadays. Ungar believes anybody can benefit from a college degree, especially a Liberal Arts one. College students at one point probably have thought to themselves that college is a waste of time. Even though college can be beneficial for students who apply themselves, college is not for everyone especially students who don’t care. Students with the “I Don’t Care” attitude will not benefit from college simply because of their mindset. Instead of the student sitting in the class counting the minutes until class is over, that student should focus more of that time on learning. That kind of attitudes distracts them from what should be the reason why they are there to improve themselves, but they don’t care. People get out of college what they put in, and for the students who don’t care it’s definitely going to show, in their work from the lack of dedication.
Students, who tend to bad in a certain class, tend to have an attitude of not caring for that class. A situation like that can affect how the student is doing in is other class, especially the ones he/she is doing well in. The stress can have a toll on them, when your stress out who tend to care less, because you can have the feeling that they’re not going to get anywhere. Not caring is going to cause them to not want to put in the dedication and work that is going to be involved in improving themselves in the class their doing bad in. Habits of studying, listening and participation is developed when an student is in school, but when you tend to only focus in one class and not caring in the other class (the one the student is doing bad in) there breaking the habit by not doing it consistently. Practice makes perfect, but because they reach the point of not caring they fail to benefit from the bad class by not learning from it and improving. The students attitude and reaction to the bad class shows they are not going to benefit from college and there lazy.
When you’re bad at something one can become frustrated and tend to care less. That could be another reason why a student can care less about learning because it’s not for them. Too much reading, not a good writer, short attention span are some ideas a student can be bad at. Charles Murray states “if you’re good at something you have no problem doing it, coming up with interesting perspective, but when you’re bad at something you tend to not care about it. Not only that nobody wants to read hour after hour, day after day, no matter what the material maybe, should be broken little by little (228). Students who are pushed into going to school tend to do worse than students who are willing to go to school according to the National Center of Education (2). Students who feel pushed in going to school tend to feel less obligated, because unless it is their own decision, not someone else they tend to care less. Besides that too much work can cause stress causing a student to feel depressed and can be t0o much on a student physically and mentally, causing the student to no care.
College shows that you have the ability to do the work and shows you’re not lazy. Murray states that employers do not value what the student has learned, just that they have a degree. They value the B.A. as a no-cost (for them) screening device for academic ability and perseverance. I don’t think it’s not that every student doesn’t care, it can be that there just not familiar with the work or the environment. Charles Murray states that “Full participation in any culture requires familiarity with a body of core knowledge” (223). Even though I stated throughout the paper that not everybody will benefit from a college degree especially students who don’t care, maybe I’m wrong it could be those students just need more attention and help.

Work Cited
Murray, Charles. “Are to Many People Going to College” “They Say, I say”. Ed. Gerald, Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 222-242. Print.
NCES (National Center for Education)(1999). “Digest of Educational Statics”. 1999. Washington, D.C.:US. Gov. Printing Office.

Cited: Murray, Charles. “Are to Many People Going to College” “They Say, I say”. Ed. Gerald, Graff, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russel Durst. New York: Norton, 2012. 222-242. Print. NCES (National Center for Education)(1999). “Digest of Educational Statics”. 1999. Washington, D.C.:US. Gov. Printing Office.