Paul Ahearne-Ray

UWRT 1103

September 23,2019

Research Summaries

Source 1

1. The title of the first source is “Please Stop Asking Whether College Is Worth It” It is an

article on Fobes published in December of last year.

2. The author is Derek Newton who lives in New York City and ran political campaigns and

wrote speeches for nearly 20 years. He was Vice- President of the Century Foundation,

which is a progressive think tank, he writes mainly about education, the economy, and

politics.

3. The main purpose for writing this article is to prove why a college degree is still

the best option and why everyone saying otherwise is wrong. Newton’s main claim is that

all who say college is not worth it, all have the same emphasis which is the earnings

aspect. Newton includes data from November of last year that found unemployment for

college graduates was 2.2% and unemployment for those with no college was 3.5%.

These numbers are very possibly a little skewed because the one positive thing happening

in America is our job market is flourishing so these numbers are probably a little lower

than usual. The article also talks about degree inflation which is more companies

requiring college degrees for jobs, even ones that previously did not require a degree for.

Newton endorses a Harvard Business school report from 2017 that found employers
 began hiring college educated workers in search of higher quality and that companies are

willing to pay college graduates more money.

The conclusions praise the fact that college has been, still is, and probably will be

worth it for sometime. The only issue with these findings is that we have no idea the

sample size that this information was collected in, they could have located a small college

in a city that is overflowing with new opportunities and observed high pay and little

unemployment. There has not been a nationwide study that collects all the facts and

accounts for all the little details, simply because the US is too big. There is too much

variance state to state to compare all 50, the only possible solution would be to conduct

state by state surveys. Newton embedded a fair amount of Logos, with all the

employment percentages and Harvard studies which he uses to convince the readers he

knows what he is talking about. He also uses some Pathos by calling other news

organizations flawed and wrong to emphasize that he is right and all others are wrong

4. This voice does agree with some other sources, because they all use the same figures to

show that college graduates make significantly more money than non college educated

workers.

5. “Foremost, earnings is a terrible way to measure the value of going to college.”

 “if college students are the customers of colleges, assuming those customers want their

time in college to lead to a good job, the customers say they believe they are getting what

they’re paying for.”

6. Since Newton does not believe the money aspect of a degree is the most important he

does not go into too much detail on that, but I do like his points on degree inflation and

most seniors believe what they are learning will benefit them in their future career. So I

would definitely use this article for evidence as to why finding a job with a college

degree is easier

Source 2

1. This article is titled “Why College isn’t worth the money” It is an article on Forbes, and it

was published in 2015

2. The writer is Casey Bond who graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a

degree in English, she is also a certified personal finance counselor. Bond is a reporter for

the Huffington Post and she covers money home and living.

3. The main purpose of this article is to tell people that college is not worth it and

why. The main claim that Bond makes is that college is not worth the debt that a graduate

and their family take on as a result of student loans. Bond includes a stat from the Wall

Street Journal that said the average loan debt of a graduate in 2014 was $33,000, which

was nearly double the amount that students had to borrow 20 years before. Not only does

the debt affects students it also has an interesting yet unsettling effect on the US

economy. The President of Spicer Wealth Management in Dayton, OH, Bryon Spicer
said that the student debt crisis is following the same trent that the housing market

followed in 2007-2008. Where student loans keep growing which pushes the price of

tution up and up until well. Bond also talks about how what your major is greatly affects

your future salary. A study by The Economist found that an Engineering degree from Cal

Berkeley will likely earn someone $1.1 million dollars more in a 20 year span than a

person with just a High School Diploma. Where as an arts major from Murray State

University in Kentucky will earn $147,000 less in a 20 year span than a high school

educated worker.

The conclusions from this article makes a lot of sense especially the study where

different degrees earn you dramatically different salaries. It makes sense because it is all

supply and demand, picking a good major is about picking something that is needed. We

will always need Engineers, Doctors, and Lawyers and that is why they make a good

amount of money. Bond incorporates logos into this article by adding the stats about

different future salaries for different jobs, as well as when she mentions how recent

graduates have put off saving for retirement, buying a car, buying a house, and even

getting married. These are all things that apply to most adults because most have gone

through each experience, but it does not relate to any pre college teens because none of

them know what is is like to buy a house. Bond used Pathos in a big way when talking

about the housing market crash and comparing it to the student debt crisis, because

millions of people remember how bad that was and if this could have a similar effect

there may be cause for concern.

 4. This voice disagrees with the other source I have in about every way which is interesting

because both talk about future salaries, but both writers were able to use it to reinforce

their respective arguments.

5. “As a millennial, I belong to the generation that was told we could do anything if we put

our minds to it.”

“I cared about the prestige behind the name just as much as the quality of the education.

And it wasn't worth it. At all.”

6. I will use this source to argue that maybe as a whole college is not worth it, but it could

possibly be worth it if you choose the right major. What I got from reading this article

was that you should really only go to college if you are majoring in a field where you can

make money. If not like art for instance take another route, I don’t believe you need a

college degree in art in order to be good at it. But you most definitely need a college

degree and more to be a good doctor

Source 3

1. This article is titled “Making College Worth It: A Review of the Returns to Higher

Education” it is from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at

Princeton University and I accessed it through ERIC, it was published in 2013.

2. One of the authors Philip Oreopoulos is a professor of Economics and Public Policy at

the University of Toronto. He obtained his Bachelors from the University of Western

Ontario, his Master of Arts from the University of British Columbia in, and his Ph.D.

from the University of California, Berkeley. Oreopoulus’s research focuses on economics

of education, Labor, and child development. The other author is Uros Petronijevic who is
 an Assistant Professor of Economics at New York University and he researches

Economics of Education, Economics of Labour, and Public Economics.

3. The main claim of this article is discussing whether or not college is worth it for the

millions of high school graduates each year. In the article the authors emphasize how

there are a varying number of factors that determine if college is a good investment for

some people versus others. Oreopoulos and Petronijevic cite numerous statistics and

studies like this one about the FAFSA. There were three groups and each were given

different information about FAFSA, one group received help completing the FAFSA and

was told about financial aid eligibility and tuition prices of nearby colleges. Another

group was told of their eligibility and college tuition and was encouraged to fill out the

FAFSA, and the third group was simply given a pamphlet about the FAFSA. And the

results showed the group who received the most information were 25% more likely to

attend and stay in college. Oreopolous also looked at the possible causes of the rising

college premium and found some probable culprits, One of them being college lowering

admission requirements. If colleges want more people they will have to lower

requirements, if this happens then people who previously would not have attended

college now can. This leaves an even lower quality of high school graduates which makes

employers want more college educated students.

All of these conclusions make sense because most of them are basic economics

most of issues circulation college is just supply and demand. If everyone is going to no

matter what no one cares about the price cause they need a degree to find a job so college

tuition keeps rising. But if there was a more affordable way to obtain a well paying job by

avoiding college then Universities would have to charge less to convince more people to
 come. This article is mainly Ethos, the authors are not necessarily trying to appeal to

anyone or convince the reading they simply gathered the facts and presented it in a way

people could understand.

4. This article really does not have a voice except that it explains that college is not the

same investment for everyone. Some people are placing safe bets and some people are

going all in. This article is nothing but a sheet telling you the prize money if you win.

5. “the college-to-high-school wage premium has been steadily increasing over the past

three decades, peaking in 2010 at around 81 percent, and that the relative supply of

college-educated workers has been steadily increasing at the same time.”

“Understanding how technological advances increase the college premium may shed light

on how college is valued in the labor market.”

6. I will use this article to talk about how it may be a better idea for some students to go to

college rather than others and how the economy and job market have a huge impact on

determining the worth of college. I also found it rather interesting that since college is

becoming so readily accessible, degrees are losing their value because so many people

are getting them now

Source 4

1. “10 Reasons Not to Go to College” is an article published on National Association of

Scholars in 2010

2. The author, Ashley Thorne got her masters degree in Linguistics at the graduate center at

city of New York University. She joined the National Association of Scholars in 2008 as

the Director of Communications Director of the Center for the Study of the Curriculum in
 2012. She has since been promoted to the Executive Director the National Association of

Scholars.

3. The main claim of this article is showing how and why college may not be worth it

anymore. The purpose is to give people 10 reasons why, whether its an alternate route or

the cost or the habits you pick up. This article took the main idea and quotes from other

sources and used each to prove a different point. One argument is that if you don’t finish

it will be a waste of time and money, and even if you take an extra year or two that is 6

years of full tuition that more than likely you have to take out loans to pay for. While

being in college all this time students are just delaying the time they can start to make

money. A student can go to college, graduate in 4 years, and get a job, but then that

company wants the student to go back to take a class in the evenings to learn some things

he may have missed. So even if you complete your degree in 4 years you could be paying

too much for not enough instruction, in other words students are not getting what they

paid for. One article Thorne talks about is kids could join the military, they can serve for

a couple years then come back and go to college for free as long as they served the period

required to qualify for the G.I. bill. Also while in college students can pick up unhealthy

habits like binge drinking, so even if a student goes to college and graduates in 4 years

they still pick up bad habits like drinking when they get stressed which can’t be the

correct way to go about it.

The conclusions make sense because most of them are just plain facts, the longer

you are in college, the more money you will have to pay. And college does help you get a

job, but you are not making money until you pay off your debts which could take up to

10 years, so while you are in debt a high school grad who has been working for 14 years
 has a comfortable life. There is not a lot of Pathos in this article because the author was

not trying to prove a point, just giving the information. There is Logos because every

reason has evidence or has been observed.

4. This source agrees with one other source I found because it talks about the money aspect,

how even if you get a well paying job you still delay the amount of time you have until

you actually make money. This contradicts two others sources I have because in this

article the author talks about how you don’t get enough bang for your buck.

5. “The value of a degree has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: it's become

worth so much because people assume it should be.”

“When higher education is for everyone, it loses its “higher” qualities.”

6. I will use this source in my writing because it provides 10 articles with main ideas that

aid the argument that college is not worth it. I will use this less as a source to prove

statements and more as a source to provide new ideas. I also found it interesting at the

end of the article the author talks about how we ruined k-12 by adding a system of

standards and we are starting to do this with college.

Source 5

1. This article is titled “College Life and the “Intangibles” That Will Get You a Job” and it

was published on the Huffington Post in 2016

2. The author is Lisa Coico who is the president of City College of New York. She received

her bachelors from Brooklyn University and her PhD. from Weill Cornell Graduate
 School of Medical Sciences. After graduating she then worked as an instructor of surgery

at Weill Cornell She has since resigned from City College of New York because of

investigations into her finances

3. The main claim is to look past the cost of college and look at the other things you gain

from going to college rather than just a higher future salary. The purpose is to educate

students on what employers in 2019 are looking for in possible candidates. Coico points

to 3 main qualities that college students gain that employers are looking for which are

Leadership, working on teams, and communication. A study done by the National

Association of College Employers found that leadership makes or breaks a hiring

decision. Employers love to see extracurriculars like when a student studies abroad or is

on a debate team because these require a student to think on their feet. Students also learn

how to work on teams in college which is essential in the real world, even when we don’t

see people face to face we can still work together through google docs or Blackboard.

Students also need to be exposed to people completely different from them because there

is nowhere to hide from different people except for small towns in the south, everywhere

else is truly a melting pot. The last thing employers look for in employees is

communication skills, according to statisticbrain.com public speaking is a more common

fear than dying and spiders. Even though everyone will not be tasked with public

speaking in their job it is still extremely important to be able to communicate effectively

whether it's in the medical field or the sales business.

The conclusions of this article are very reasonable because there is no disputing

that it is helpful to have good people skills. Especially in 2019 where everything is

connected it is imperative that you know how to work with people who are different from
 yourself and be able to communicate. This article is mostly logos because the author uses

studies or her findings to prove that companies want candidates who can lead, work

together, and communicate.

4. This voice agrees with other sources I have found but in a different way. The other

sources that claimed college was worth it mostly focused on the money side that college

graduates have a higher future salary. This article focuses on what companies are looking

for and how college provides this intangibles.

5. “Jerry Seinfeld’s quip that, “if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than

doing the eulogy.”

“The college campus is a microcosm of the world at large.”

6. I will definitely use this article to talk about why college is worth it, but it is a good break

from my other sources which only talk about money. I also agree with this article because

ever since I have been in college everyone has been telling me that employers want

people who can communicate and work with people.

Source 6

1. The title of this article is titled “Is College Worth the Cost?” and it was published on U.S.

News in June of 2019.

2. The author of this article is Emma Kerr, she attended the University of Michigan where

she studied English Language & Literature with a focus on medieval to modern women

in literature, and Middle East Studies spanning culture, history and language. After
 college she first covered education at the University of Maryland and, She now works

for U.S. News & World Report where she is paying for college reporter.

3. The main purpose of this article is not to persuade or argue a point it is simply stating

facts about why people go to college and possible alternatives for some people. The main

claim of this article is that the main deciding factor in whether someone should go to

college or not is what they plan to study. Kerr mentions a study done by the University of

California- Los Angeles that found 85% of incoming freshmen said the main reason they

attended college was to get a better job. On average a college graduate makes $30,000

more a year than a worker with a high school diploma, While this is the case for most

people it is not always true. The bottom 25 percentile of college graduates make less than

high school graduates according to the New York Fed. As Always the amount of

education greatly increases salaries, what a student majors in also can increase or

decrease their salary. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York observed that college

graduates with degrees in fields like childhood education or social services made the

same as high school graduates. And college graduates with degrees in the medical field

and computer engineering earn 6 figures on average. A recent survey done by a

technology company in Boston ,Cengage, found that on average soon to be graduates

predicted it would take 6 years to pay off debts when in reality it takes 20 years.

Alternatives for students are also a good idea, especially for the ones who really don’t

have enough money for college and for students that their intended job salary is not one

of the higher ones.

The conclusions of the evidence seems reasonable because for most college

students around the country the prevailing reason they are there is to get a well paying
 job. There is not a lot of Pathos because the author is not trying to persuade the reader in

any way so there is no need for any kind of emotional appeal. The author uses Logos by

including studies and surveys oddly from mostly the northeast.

4. This source agrees with other sources I have found because the author makes a point

about how what a student studies matters, if a student is an engineer their salary will is

going to be higher than an elementary school teacher because the world needs more

engineers than teachers. Not saying teachers aren’t needed, in today's society they are

extremely undervalued, especially in the south.

5. “We are at a state in the world where you can look up anything with a simple cellphone.

You have everything at your disposal now. Step out of that idea of being scared of what's

next and look into what's out there.”

“Students whose chosen career fields don't require a bachelor's degree, or those whose

families determine the benefits do not outweigh the cost, might want to begin exploring

alternatives to a four-year education.”

6. I will use this source to explain that in 2019 the most beneficial part of college is the

degree you geet, not where you get it from or how fast you obtain it, but what field a

degree is in is the biggest advantage of college.

Source 7

1. This article is titled “Waiting Just a Few Years to Go To College Can Save You Tens of

Thousands” and is published on thestreet.com. In 2015

2. The author is Nicholas Pell who holds a bachelor's degree in English from the University

of Massachusetts. Pell is a freelance journalist with extensive experience in both

 traditional and new media, he has also studied business law, history, politics, finance, and

music. Pell is a contributor to Investopedia and business insider, and has written about

guitars, money, and cars, among other topics.

3. The main purpose of this article is to explain why people should wait to go to college

instead of going immediately after high school. The main claim is if you were to wait you

would be saving so much money by not taking on huge student loans. The first point the

author makes is sometimes you need to break the college cycle, a personal finance expert

Chris Hogan claims that people need to start thinking does college actually bring them

closer to their goals, if so they should go to college. The CEO of 180 skills Joe Kitterman

explains that he went to college in the 70’s and flunked out twice because at the age of

18, he had no idea what to do with his life. Back then that was a mistake but in 2019

when tuition is much higher now, it is a life altering mistake. Even if people do not want

to wait to go to college they can still attend community college where classes are a

fraction of the cost. No employer cares where you were for the first two years of college

they care about if you got a degree and what field it is in. The author also talks about how

high school graduates can always look for a job right out of highschool especially in

industrial or technical fields. The workforce is getting older and employers need young

people with skills and knowledge. If you get a job out of highschool if you picked the

right employer hopefully they will pay some if not all of the cost for you to get a college

degree. So instead of getting into debt than getting a job to pay it off more people should

get a job than further down the road go back to school with a good chunk of it paid for.

The conclusions are reasonable because it is a known fact that community

colleges are far more cheaper than 4 year universities, and most times companies just
 want you to have a degree they might not even care that much about what the degree is

in. The author used a little Pathos when talking about breaking the college cycle because

he attempted to appeal to people by showing that even very successful people didn’t

know what they were going to do in their teen years. The rest of the article is Logos

because it is basic facts about college and testimonials.

4. This voice agrees with some other sources I have found because it suggests an alternative

route from going to a 4 year University and raking up tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

It does propose a different perspective from any other article I found because it is the

only one that mentions waiting to go to college.

5. “And getting your employer to cover a sociology degree for you is a far wiser use of your

time and potentially money than racking up a lot of student loan debt.”

“‘I had fun, but I flunked out twice.’ Kitterman says that when he made that mistake a

credit hour cost $15. Of course, tuition has risen more than 1,000% across the nation in

the ensuing decades.”

6. I will use this source to explain how one should go about finding a career if they decided

not to go to college. This article reminds me of my highschool carpentry class where our

teacher worked with local companies to get some of the lower income students jobs right

out of highschool.
Source 8

1. This article is titled “Does Higher Education Still Prepare People for Jobs?” and it was

published in 2019 on Harvardbuisnessreview.com

2. One of the authors Becky Frankiewicz attended the University of Texas where she earned

a Bachelors in Marketing and an MBA in Finance. She is currently the President of

ManpowerGroup North America where she joined in 2017, previously she was headed

one of Pepsico’s largest subsides Quaker Foods North America. The other author is

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic who was born in Argentina and is a co-founder of Meta

which is a company that creates data driven tools to help employers identify candidates

with leadership qualities. He is actively a professor of business psychology at Columbia

University as well as the head chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup, he also serves

on the board of directors for The International Society for the Study of Individual

Differences.

3. The main purpose of this article is highlighting the traits and qualities that employers are

looking for in new employees. The main claim is that colleges and employers look for

vastly different things so getting into a good college does not necessarily mean you are

hiriable. In the first part of the article the authors talk about the relative value of a college

degree in today's world. The value of college degrees decrease as the number of college

graduates increase, for example a degree in sub-saharan Africa boosts earnings by 20%

opposed to 9% in Scandinavia where 40% of adults have degrees. Employers are also

demanding degrees for basically all jobs, limiting their possible employee pool. The
 authors include data driven arguments that question the actual value of a degree, which

shows that the correlation between education and job performance is weak. Intelligence

scores are better indicators of job performance rather than grades, because past academic

success measures the amount a person has studied where Intelligence scores can be used

to predict a candidates ability to learn and think. The second part of the article is about

the social skills employers look for. While colleges look for on paper skills, employers

care more about candidates people skills as well as integrity and resilience. Colleges can

restore their relevance by teaching students, more leadership skills as that is what

employers want. As technology gets more advanced companies are looking for people

who can do what computers can’t, and since people can’t outthink artificial intelligence

employers want employees who can communicate.

The evidence of this article is reasonable because none of these findings can be

disputed. The part about the value of a degree makes sense because if everyone has a

college degree nothing is separating graduates besides more education. And the part

about what employers are looking for is straight from job recruiters. There is no Pathos in

this article because there is no appeal, nothing to relate to except for the fact that people

went to college. There is a good deal of Logos in this article because the authors included

research and company testimonials.

4. This article agrees with another source I found which also talked about what companies

want in new job candidates. This article agrees with other sources I found because the

authors discuss the relative value of a college degree without mentioning the cost of

tuition. This article does not directly oppose other sources I found because none have

talked about the same topics.

 5. “As the impact of AI and disruptive technology grows, candidates who can perform tasks

that machines cannot are becoming more valuable.”

“Even if the value attached to a university degree is beneficial to those who obtain it,

companies can help change the narrative by putting less weight on “higher education” as

a measure of intellectual competence and job potential, and instead, approach hiring with

more open-mindedness.”

6. I will use this article to discuss why so many people ignore the cost of cost of tuition to

attend college, and also how to get a job without going to college. I thought this article

was well put together because I have already learned first hand that companies want to

see how you communicate.

Source 9

1. This article is titled “This Is the Way the College ‘Bubble’ Ends” and it was published on

theatlantic.com in 2017

2. The author of this piece is Dereck Thompson who was born in 1986, and graduated from

Northwestern in 2008. Right out of college in 2009 Dereck joined the atlantic as a writer,

and in 2018 he started a podcast about technology and science called Crazy/Genius which

was nominated for an iHeartMedia Best Podcast Award. At the atlantic Dereck writes

about economics, technology, and media along with partisan views on each of these

topics.

3. The main purpose for writing this piece to explain why there is a possibility that in the

coming years college tuition prices could be falling due to many factors. The main claims

of this article is that the number of teenagers is decreasing and there are too many
colleges. For 20 years the number of students going to college continued to rise until

2011, and the reason is because the millennial generation was so large. Today’s teenagers

are not necessarily avoiding college and giving into the stereotype that kids these days are

lazy, the number of teenage kids is constantly decreasing. Another reason for the possible

decline of prices is the shear amount of colleges in the US. In the last 3 decades higher

education was one of the economy’s unstoppable growth sectors with the number of 2

and 4 year universities growing 30% from 1990- 2010. While the number of incoming

college students is decreasing, Universities are finding that they are losing their pricing

power and are starting to offer discounts to fill the lecture halls. This price drop is not

necessarily affecting all colleges just the profit colleges, Profit colleges are defined as

universities that have low graduation rates and high student debt. These profit colleges

often targeted adults rather than teenagers so they were hurt when the job market was up

and the government under the Obama administration cracked down on the shady tactics.

All of these factors could combine to make a perfect storm which hurt Universities and

finally force tuition prices down.

The conclusions of this article are very sensible because the author included easy

to read charts and graphs which showcased his points well. There is no disputing that

parents in the early 2000’s had less kids because it is raw data, and the result is college

enrollment will fall because there are simply not enough kids. The author includes a little

Pathos because this price drop has not occurred yet, he is attempting to predict what will

happen and is informing the reader why this might happen. All the charts and graphs are

great examples of Logos because they are just visually pleasing facts to make us believe

the author is right.

 4. This voice does not agree or disagree with previous sources I have found because all of

the previous sources deal with the worth of a degree. This article is about the future

pricing of colleges which could indeed affect the worth because if the price goes down

and the economy stays strong college will most definitely be worth it.

5. “It’s a truism in economics that most technological change in any industry takes place not

during the boom times, but during downturns, when firms have to be clever to survive.

Let’s see if American colleges are smart enough to adapt to the new normal.”

“the discounts are ‘so deep that, while their sticker prices appear to be rising ahead of the

inflation rate, the schools are actually seeing their net tuition revenue decline’.”

6. I will use this source to talk about the future of my topic which is if the price of tuition

decreases than a college degree may become more worth it. I would also like to see how

the profit colleges are doing now under the Trump Administration which has been known

for decreasing regulation.

Source 10

1. This article is a peer reviewed journal within the library’s website and is titled “An

empirical investigation of the financial value of a college degree” and it was published in

2017. https://doi.org/10.1080/09645292.2017.1332167

2. One of the authors Lisa A. Burke-Smalley holds a PhD. from the in Human

Resources/Organizational Behavior from Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

She is currently a professor of management at the University of Tennessee at

Chattanooga. Burke-Smalley is a former professor of the year teaching executive

education courses and she has published more than 85 academic journals. The other
 author Bento Lobo got his Masters and PhD. from the University of New Orleans in

financial economics. He is actively a professor at the University of Tennessee at

Chattanooga and teaches many courses related to finance and economics. Lobo also has a

vast number of publications

3. The main purpose of this article is to showcase the findings of the extensive research the

author and others did on the topic of is college worth the cost. The main claim is that the

worthiness depends on a number of factors like what degree you get, how long it takes

you to graduate, and the current economy. This article mainly looks at the predicted

future salary of graduates that is the only topic they discuss when determining if college

is worth it. In the first part of the article the author includes a couple of studies that show

similar results with regard to future earnings, One study found a graduate with a

bachelor's degree earned $1.2 Million more over their lifetime than a high school

diploma. A different study showed that an engineering degree earns students $1.7 million

more than a high school diploma. Both of these results are very educated guesses but they

also have a lot of factors that must stay true for these numbers to be accurate. College

graduates also start at higher salaries and typically raise their pay quicker than high

school graduates which makes the pay gap even bigger in the first 10 years of

employment. A huge factor that determines if college is worth it is the time it takes for a

student to graduate, so their first class to when they walk across the stage. Students who

graduate in 4 years can expect to recover the cost of college within 13 years, but students

who take 6 years to graduate take around 28 years to recoup the cost of college. This

same study determined that if a student was in a higher paying fields like Engineering,

graduating in 6 years is still financially viable. So even if you get a degree the education
 may not have been worth it. The last big idea of the article was directly comparing the

earnings percentiles of both college graduates and high school graduates. While the 50

percentile of college graduates earn significantly more than a majority of high school

graduates, the 25 percentile of college degree holders make less than 50 percentile of

high school graduates. Even the 75 percentile of college graduates make less in their life

than the top 90 percentile of high school graduates.

These findings are believable but rather confusing at some times, like when the

author said college graduates definitely make more money over their lifetime than high

school grads then goes on to say how only the top 80 percent make more than the top

high school grads. This is more of an informative piece with the objective to just get this

information out there without necessarily putting the authors opinions in it there is little

to no Pathos. This article is in fact chock full of Logos because every other line was

talking about a new study and what they found that was different from this other study.

4. This article does not necessarily have a voice the author just identified the findings. They

are not trying to prove a point but the voice of the article is that college is worth it if you

do good, pick a needed major, and graduate as soon as possible. So this article agrees

with the past sources that say it depends on many factors if college is worth it.

5. “ Data from the College Board indicates that the annual increase in tuition at public and

private institutions averaged 3.36% over the period 2000 to 2015. The analogous increase

for net tuition was 3.31%.”

“Relatedly, the discounted payback period, i.e. the time it would take to recover the

present value adjusted costs of college, also varies with the time-to-graduation. A debt-
 financed average student can expect to recover costs in about 13 years when graduating

in four years, and in 28 years when graduating in six years.”

6. I will use this source heavily in my paper because this is a great answer to if college is

worth it, in no way is there 1 right answer if there is a correct answer at all. It is different

for everyone because everyone has different circumstances, so if you will do the work

and graduate yes college will be worth it, but if you are going to college cause you

supposed to and going to graduate when you get to it. It probably is not worth it