Professional Documents
Culture Documents
January 2012
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 1 The New Foundation Brief ................................................................................................................................. 4 Key Organizational Changes .............................................................................................................................. 5 Hierarchical Sections ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Hierarchical Evidence ..................................................................................................................................... 5 Topic Analysis ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Definitions............................................................................................................................................................... 7 Framework .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 Defend Your Source ............................................................................................................................................. 11 Author Index ..................................................................................................................................................... 12 Organization Index ........................................................................................................................................... 16 Laying the Foundation .......................................................................................................................................... 18 Important Data to Consider ........................................................................................................................... 20 Pro Evidence ......................................................................................................................................................... 21 General .............................................................................................................................................................. 22 Rising Costs ...................................................................................................................................................... 23 Stagnating Income ............................................................................................................................................ 25 Money Can Be Better Invested ......................................................................................................................... 27 Other Job Prospects Better Suited for Some ..................................................................................................... 29 Too Many Grads End Up in Jobs Not Needing College Diploma.................................................................... 31 Debt Too Dangerous ......................................................................................................................................... 35 Unprepared Students Pushed into College........................................................................................................ 37 Chance of Dropout Too High ........................................................................................................................... 42 For-Profit Colleges Not Beneficial ................................................................................................................... 43 Much Education Does Not Occur in College ................................................................................................... 48
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Quality of Education is Poor ............................................................................................................................. 49 Some Students Not SuitedWaste of Money/Time ........................................................................................ 52 Negative Impact on Society and Economy ....................................................................................................... 53 Cost to Taxpayers ............................................................................................................................................. 54 Spending on Education Negatively Related to Economic Growth ................................................................... 56 State Investment in College has High Opportunity Cost .................................................................................. 57 Costs Limiting Access ...................................................................................................................................... 58 Con Evidence ........................................................................................................................................................ 59 General .............................................................................................................................................................. 60 Lower Unemployment ...................................................................................................................................... 63 Demand for College-Educated Employees is High and Rising ........................................................................ 65 Education Particularly Important During Recession ........................................................................................ 68 Degree Offers Protection in Poor Economy ..................................................................................................... 69 Knowledge Economy Necessitates Education .................................................................................................. 70 General Positive Impact on Earning and Wages .............................................................................................. 71 Impact on Quality of Life and Earnings ........................................................................................................... 72 Degree has Significant Positive Impact on Wages ........................................................................................... 76 Wage Premium Rising Faster than Cost ........................................................................................................... 81 College Degree is the Only Route to a Middle Class (or better) Job and Life ................................................. 82 Education Important for Subsequent Training.................................................................................................. 83 Working Uneducated Jobs Is Unsustainable .................................................................................................... 84 Technology Drives Demand for Education ...................................................................................................... 85 General Benefit to Society and Economy ......................................................................................................... 86 Higher Tax Payments Benefit Society .............................................................................................................. 89 Lower Healthcare Costs Benefit Society .......................................................................................................... 94 Lower Welfare Costs Benefit Society .............................................................................................................. 96 High Societal Costs of Failing to Graduate ...................................................................................................... 98 Increased Civic Engagement .......................................................................................................................... 101 foundationbriefs.com Page 2 of 123
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Education Provide High Return on Societal Investment through Productivity Increases .............................. 103 Pro Counters........................................................................................................................................................ 104 Unemployment Similar Between College and................................................................................................ 105 Non-College Educated Workers ..................................................................................................................... 105 Million Dollar Premium is Wrong .................................................................................................................. 106 Job Growth in Degree-Requiring Sectors is Low ........................................................................................... 108 Con Counters ...................................................................................................................................................... 109 Debt is a Good Investment.............................................................................................................................. 110 Remediated Students Succeed ........................................................................................................................ 111 Underutilized College Grads Better Off Than High School Graduates .......................................................... 112 Non-Traditional Jobs Benefit From College Education ................................................................................. 113 BLS Statistics Undervalue Degree ................................................................................................................. 114 Over-education is Exaggerated ....................................................................................................................... 116 Dangers of For-Profit Can Be Avoided .......................................................................................................... 117 Increasing Costs Justified ............................................................................................................................... 118 Contentions ......................................................................................................................................................... 119 Pro Contentions............................................................................................................................................... 120 Con Contentions ............................................................................................................................................. 122
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Topic Analysis
This is a general reflection on the resolution. It will provide to you an impression of the topic at hand, challenges you will face while debating, and a picture of where we see the debate headed.
Framework
Often times, the most important part of the debate is to actually win before the debate begins. With this section, we will set you up for such a feat. With unique analysis on how to lay the conditions for victory, you will be guaranteed to begin battle already with an advantage.
Strategy Sections
Foundation Briefs is committed to making sure you understand the evidence provided to you. We will never simply throw quotes at you and hope you can understand what we are trying to imply. That is where the Strategy Section comes in. At the beginning of all major sections (i.e. the section in the brief regarding alQaeda) there will appear a small section of original Foundation Briefs analysis to tell you how we see the evidence being used, what rhetoric will please the judge and which counterarguments to be prepared for.
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Hierarchical Sections
As with last season, all of the evidence in each Foundation Brief will be broken down into sections. The most crucial arguments will come first. It is our intention that these sections will serve as excellent foundations for contentions throughout the month. Although these sections were a feature of our briefs last year, we have renewed our commitment to making sure that the most relevant sections come first.
Hierarchical Evidence
Arguably the most important change we made to our organization is that evidence is now organized from most to least important. This means that if you only want the most crucial sources and the most relevant ideas, you will see such evidence in the first few sources of each section. These essential sources of each section are considered the Core Evidence Section, what you will want to include in your contentions. Following the core will be the Supporting Evidence Section, which will give you greater understanding and further nuance to the argumentdont ignore this section! Evidence in this section is still very important; it just might not be ideal to put in your time-constrained ~1 minute contentions. Finally, the Counter Evidence Section will come at the end of the brief.
Important note: Webpages and online articles that are long and continuous will always be cited as page one (1)
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Definitions
Topic Analysis
This months topic is a nice departure from the democratic debates surrounding the past months, and it is also very relevant to high school debaters as they confront their futures. Indeed, as many debaters are very much academically motivated many might not have questioned the value of college without this topic. The topic itself is hugely challenging, and while interesting, seems as if it was quickly put together without a lot of thought by the writers of resolutions. It is an incredibly broad and vague resolution. Of course, every resolution we are confronted with has ground on both sides of the debate. The real truth to a resolution is it depends and that learning experience is one of the better parts about participating in debate. This resolution, however, takes the it depends scenario to the extreme, so much so that the quality of the debate could be far reduced. For example, the value of college is not at all the same for a budding athlete looking to become a professional compared to an upper-middle class student who wants to be a doctor. It is also different for a student who barely passed high school, lacks true motivation and will need to take on significant debt to get through college than for a brilliant entrepreneur like Mark Zuckerberg. Teams will be able to easily create many different scenarios on both sides where it will be glaringly obvious that the costs outweigh benefits or vice versa. Thus, the risk is that teams will end up defending their invincible points and talking past one another, unable to really engage in a debate. It will be even more challenging for the judge. If each side proves college is/not worth it for 1-2 groups of people, how is the judge to decide which group is more important? It will be your job as a debater to provide coherent weighing mechanisms for the round. The key is going to be flexibility, both sides will need to take a big picture approach to the debate and look at the college experience as a whole for all parties involved. We will say, though, that there is overwhelming evidence supporting the Con side in this debatethis resolution is possibly the most one-sided resolution we have been confronted with so far this year. While it is true that many of the benefits to a college education have been exaggerated, and that there are risks to investing in that education, for the hugely vast majority of people a college education of some form or another is incredibly beneficial. Luckily, you have this brief, which means we have tirelessly worked to erode the Cons advantage through extensive research to uncover some great points for the Pro side. Good luck this month.
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Definitions
Definitions
Costs
For this resolution, costs should be considered in a relatively broad sense, encompassing everything from monetary costs to costs that impact ones quality of life. Additionally, it is worth noting that societal costs will exist both in the monetary sense and, as Con could argue, in lower civic engagement or higher rates of incarceration. Merriam Webster: the outlay or expenditure (as of effort or sacrifice) made to achieve an object
College education
Merriam Webster: education beyond the secondary level (typically from some degree-granting institution).
Outweigh
The use of outweigh in this resolution implies some on balance argument in which neither side has to prove that in every instance they are correct, just that the majority of the time and for the more impactful instances they are correct in their argument. Merriam Webster: to exceed in weight, value, or importance
Benefits
Much like costs, this is defined extremely broadlysomething the below definition alludes to. Simply put, there are many benefits (both to individuals and society) that can accrue from college. Be aware of this regardless of which side of the resolution you are on. Merriam Webster: something that promotes well-being
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Framework
Framework
Simply delivering your contentions to the judge will not be enough to convince him or her, a true champion debater is able to filter the resolution through a screen of insightful analysis. You must provide a reasoning behind your arguments that goes beyond statistics, and makes the judge care about what you say. Often times, this takes the form of breaking down and analyzing the engine behind the resolution, finding out what the central propelling factor is that makes the debate relevant. Below we have constructed a few lenses to view the resolution. It is often best to include one of these as a quick observation before you begin your contentions. The goal is to provide the judge a greater depth of understanding to the round in a way that will give you an advantage before the debate really begins. Then, you will weave this theme throughout.
Perspectives
As briefly mentioned in the Topic Analysis, and as you will see throughout the brief, the value and costs of a college education vastly differ between individuals. There are two main perspectives you can take on to better understand this resolution. The first is to become a prospective college student navigating his or her way through the application process. This should be relatively easy for many debaters given that a lot of them are doing just that right now. What are the implications of taking on such a persona? Most importantly, the debate becomes a lot more hypothetical. We start to weight the options of different paths to college. For example, if Pro has a contention about the dangers of for-profit colleges, the Con can claim that there are many options out there that involve college education but not for-profit that the student can pursue. Additionally, rising costs are ultimately the choice of the prospective student because he/she can choose a community college, or a state institution over a private college (or that there are many scholarships available). Another nuance of this perspective is that we are almost assuming the individual is qualified to go to college. The debate starts at, "Well, I can go to college, but is it worth it?" This stands in contrast to the many students who are unprepared but are misled or misdirected to pursue college anyway. This perspective most definitely suits the Con side because many of the downsides of college can be explained away with the large number of options students can take to choose the college that best suits their own financial/academic circumstances. The other major perspective to take on this resolution is to become a researcher looking down on the nation as a whole and asking, "What is the state of college education?" As a dutiful researcher, the facts and realities cannot be ignored. Yes, students do have the choice to avoid for-profit colleges, but many are misled and end up saddled with debt and few job prospects. True, students do not have to major in non job oriented fields of study that end up with less pay, but the reality is that the "college for all" mantra has pushed so many students into college before they have any idea of a career that this is too often a real mistake. This perspective
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Framework
is advantageous for the Pro side because debaters will need to confront all of the characteristics of college education and not just the good ones. Finally, the resolution does not necessarily limit debate to individuals. Most of the debate will indeed center on the costs and benefits for a single person going to college, but there are also larger impacts felt by society. Taxpayers play a big role in college education, and the economy as a whole is influenced by the level of education of workers. We have included some very interesting and relevant points on both sides dealing with nation-wide impacts, do not disregard these.
Pro
First, do not allow Con to pick its own ground, i.e. say that students can choose the right school for them. On the Pro side you will need to include as much ground as possible to bring in all of the various factors that can go horribly wrong with a college education. Before you begin the round, make sure to clearly outline the difference between correlation and causation. Almost all of the studies about college find that college graduates earn more, are healthier, etc. But none of them isolate education as the causal link to these benfits. Indeed, it seems very reasonable that the same characteristics that get a student into college also enable them to excel in the workplace (critical thinking, commitment, etc). So it is not a big leap to claim that if these college students passed up on college and went right into the workplace, they would equally succeed. For example, those who attend college for 1-2 years and then drop out still make more than those with only a high school diploma. This could show they are getting by more on their natural abilities than on the limited education they received by going to school for a year. By constantly questioning the evidence that Con presents, you can effectively cast doubt on their arguments with relative ease. It will be very hard for them to legitimately claim their evidence accounts for these factors. A final cautionary note: be consistent in your message. There are different lines of argumentation you can take on the Pro side and mixing these are sometimes contradictory. For example, if you are going to argue against for-profit colleges and their dangers you must also be careful if you want to claim that vocational training/certification and licensing are viable alternatives to four year colleges because that type of training is often provided by for-profit colleges.
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Framework
Con
The Con side can narrow the debate to its advantage, because, considering all of the factors involved, college always has a positive return on investment for the average student. Like any investment, there is risk involved, and money spent is lost to some degree if one fails to graduate. However, study after study shows that going to college will guarantee you earnings and higher employment rates. This is hard to argue with when you interpret the resolution in a very literal sense. The costs of a college education in monetary terms is between 10,000-300,000 depending on the college and forgone wages, etc. But the extra wages earned far exceed this. Focusing the debate into these very simple terms will make it clear to the judge that the Con side should win, and then on top of that message you can add in intellectual and social benefits. Are we assuming the person is qualified to go to college? What about kids who are not prepared but still pushed into college?
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Author Index
Author Index
Robert Archibald
Robert Archibald is the chancellor professor of economics at William & Mary College. He focuses his research on higher education
Richard Arum
Richard Arum is professor of sociology and education at New York University.
Sandy Baum
Sandy Baum is a professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College and senior policy analyst for the College Board.
David Brooks
Mr. Brooks is a prestigious journalist writing for the New York Times and serves as a commentator for PBS.
Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University.
Anthony Carnevale
Anthony P. Carnevale is the Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Between 1996 and 2006, Dr. Carnevale served as Vice-President for Public Leadership at the Educational Testing Service (ETS). While at ETS, Dr. Carnevale was appointed by President George Bush to serve on the White House Commission on Technology and Adult Education. Before joining ETS, Dr. Carnevale was Director of Human Resource and Employment Studies at the Committee for Economic Development (CED), the nation's oldest business-sponsored policy research organization. While at CED, Dr. Carnevale was appointed by President Clinton to Chair the National Commission on Employment Policy.
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Author Index
David H. Feldman
David H. Feldman is a professor of economics and public policy at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Robert B. Archibald is chancellor professor of economics at the College of William and Mary.
Dana Goldstein
From Wikipedia, Dana Goldstein is a journalist, a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Fellow at The Nation Institute. She is a former associate editor at The Daily Beast and in 2010 won the Spencer Fellowship in education journalism at Columbia University.
Michael Greenstone
Michael Greenstone is the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2009-10 he served as the chief economist at the White Houses Council of Economic Advisers.
David Leonhardt
David Leonhardt is a journalist for the New York Times. In 2003, he was part of a team of Times reporters whose coverage of corporate scandals was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a New York Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics." He was a winner of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers "Best in Business Journalism Contest" for his New York Times column in 2009 and 2007. In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for his economic columns. In 2011 he won the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. In July 2011, Leonhardt was appointed as chief of the Washington bureau of The Times.
Adam Looney
Adam Looney is a senior fellow in Economic Studies and policy director of The Hamilton Project. His research focuses on tax policy, labor economics, inequality and social policy. Previously, Looney was the senior economist for public finance and tax policy with the Presidents Council of Economic Advisers and has been an economist at the Federal Reserve Board.
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Author Index
Michael Mandel
Michael Mandel is the Chief Economic Strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute and the founder of Visible Economy LLC, a New York-based news and education company. Mandel is also president of South Mountain Economics, a consulting company and a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton Schools Mack Center for Technological Innovation and formerly chief economist at BusinessWeek.
Charles Murray
Charles Murray is a political scientist and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
Marty Nemko
Marty Nemko is a career counselor based in Oakland, Calif.
Josipa Roska
Josipa Roksa is Assistant Professor of Sociology, with a courtesy appointment in the Curry School of Education. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, in Psychology from Mount Holyoke College, and Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University (NYU).
Mark Schneider
Mark Schneider is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Vice President at the American Institutes for Research, based in Washington DC. Prior to joining AIR, he served as the U.S. Commissioner of Education Statistics from 2005-2008. He is also a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the State University of New York, Stony Brook.
Jacques Steinberg
Jacques Steinberg is an American journalist for The New York Times and a graduate of Dartmouth College. The Education Writers Association honored Steinberg's reading series with its top award, the Fred M. Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting, in 1998.
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Author Index
Andrew Sum
Andrew M. Sum is Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
Richard Vedder
Richard Vedder is Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ohio University and a member of the Board of Scholars at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and education institute headquartered in Midland, Mich.
Marcus A. Winters
Marcus Winters is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
Alison Wolf
Alison Wolf is a professor of public-sector management at King's College London
Jim Wolfston
Jim Wolfston is founder and president of CollegeNET, Inc., a leading developer of web-based technology for online commerce, contact management, scheduling and space use optimization. Jim is a named inventor on 10 U.S. patents covering various innovations in web-based forms commerce.
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Organization Index
Organization Index
The Center for College Affordability and Productivity
Founded in 2006, The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) is dedicated to researching the rising costs and stagnant efficiency in higher education, with special emphasis on the United States. CCAP seeks to facilitate a broader dialogue on the issues and problems facing the institutions of higher education with the public, policy makers, and the higher education community.
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Foundation:
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December 2011 Foundation: employers what they know, not where they learned it and how long it took them. In other words, substitute certifications for the bachelor's degree. Marty Nemko: Students with weak academic records should be informed that, of freshmen at "four year" colleges who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their high-school class, two-thirds won't graduate even if given eight and a half years. And that even if such students defy the odds, they will likely graduate with a low GPA and a major in low demand by employers. A college should not admit a student it believes would more wisely attend another institution or pursue a noncollege postsecondary option. Students' lives are at stake, not just enrollment targets. (1) Bryan Caplan: There are two ways to read this question. One is: "Who gets a good financial and/or personal return from college?" My answer: people in the top 25 percent of academic ability who also have the work ethic to actually finish college. The other way to read this is: "For whom is college attendance socially beneficial?" My answer: no more than 5 percent of high-school graduates, because college is mostly what economists call a "signaling game." Most college courses teach few useful job skills; their main function is to signal to employers that students are smart, hard-working, and conformist. The upshot: Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn't encourage it. Richard Vedder: While it is true that areas with high proportions of college graduates tend to have higher incomes and even higher rates of economic growth than other areas, it does not necessarily follow that mindlessly increasing college enrollments enhances our economic well-being. My own research shows that there generally is a negative relationship between state support for higher education and economic growth. Sending marginal students to four-year degree programs, only to drop out, is a waste of human and financial resources, and lowers the quality of life for those involved. Markus Winters: Increasing college-attendance rates in the United States is essential to reducing income inequality and maintaining our stature as a world economic leader. Our economic dominance in the second half of the 20th century was directly related to our educational dominance. The United States was the first nation to provide basic education to all people regardless of their income. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the educated American worker was far more productive than his illiterate overseas cousin. That advantage made our nation rich. However, while other nations eventually caught on and caught up, American educational outcomes have stagnated since the late 1970s. We have lost our educational advantage. Those who argue that the bachelor's degree has lost its luster in the labor market are ignoring empirical evidence to the contrary. As of 2005, after accounting for the differences between those who go to college and those who do not, the premium for a year of college education was about 13 to 14 percent of an individual's weekly wage. Employers clearly still value the general knowledge and work ethic that a student acquires in college. It is important to note that the benefits of attending college are found both across and within professions. Blue-collar workers benefit nearly as much as white-collar workers from a year of college education. That is, going to
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December 2011 Foundation: college makes you a better plumber than you would have been otherwise. Why? One reason might be that college imparts nonacademic, social skills that can benefit blue-collar workers, who often must interact with customers and clients who are themselves college-educated.
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Pro Evidence
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General
Pathways to Prosperity. Rep. Harvard Graduate School of Education, Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Our current system places far too much emphasis on a single pathway to success: attending and graduating from a four-year college after completing an academic program of study in high school. Yet as weve seen, only 30 percent of young adults successfully complete this preferred pathway, despite decades of efforts to raise the numbers. And too many of them graduate from college without a clear conception of the career they want to pursue, let alone a pathway for getting there. It is long past time that we broaden the range of highquality pathways that we offer to our young people, beginning in high school. The lessons from other countries strongly suggest that this might be the single most promising strategy for greatly increasing the percentage of young adults who earn a post-secondary degree or credential that prepares them to embark on a meaningful career. (24)
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Rising Costs
Vedder, Richard, and Matthew Denhart. "Why Does College Cost so Much?" CNN. 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011.
This year, according to the College Board, average published in-state tuition and fee plus room/board charges exceed $17,000 at four-year public institutions, a 6% increase from only one year earlier. (1) In 2009, spending by Americans for post-secondary education totaled $461 billion, an amount 42% greater than in 2000, after accounting for inflation. This $461 billion is the equivalent of 3.3% of total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and an amount greater than the total GDP of countries such as Sweden, Norway and Portugal. (1) Whereas private businesses cut prices for consumers and costs to themselves through efficiencies that increase profits and incomes, universities lack those incentives. Indeed, the typical successful university president views his or her key constituencies not to be the customer (students and their parents who pay tuition charges or the granters of research funds), but rather others -- the faculty, important alumni, key administrators, trustees and occasionally politicians. They please these constituencies by raising, and then spending, lots of money. They effectively bribe powerful faculty with low teaching loads, hig salaries and good parking. They give the alumni successful intercollegiate athletic programs that are expensive and usually financed off the backs of students. They give trustees whatever they want, no matter how costly or eccentric. (1) Like health care, prices are rising rapidly for higher education because of the predominant role of third-party payments -- federal student loans and grants, state government support for institutions and students, private philanthropic gifts and endowment income. College seniors who borrow to finance their education now graduate with an average of $24,000 in debt, and student loan debt now tops credit card debt among Americans. When some else is paying a lot of the bills, students are less sensitive to the price, thus allowing the colleges to care less about keeping prices under control. And the nonprofit nature of institutions reduces incentives for colleges and universities to be efficient. (1)
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Plumer, Brad. "College Tuition Is out of Control." The Washington Post. 27 Oct. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
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Stagnating Income
Censky, Annalyn. "Rising College Costs Price out Middle Class." CNN. 13 June 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Tuition: In 1988, the average tuition and fees for a four-year public university rang in at about $2,800, adjusted for inflation. By 2008, that number had climbed about 130% to roughly $6,500 a year -- and that doesn't include books or room and board. Income: If incomes had kept up with surging college costs, the typical American would be earning $77,000 a year. But in reality, it's nowhere near that. In 2008 -- the latest data available -- the median income was $33,000. That means if you adjust for inflation, Americans in the middle actually earned $400 less than they did in 1988. (1)
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Mandel, Michael. "Earnings of Young College Grads vs College Costs." Businessweek. 12 Sept. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
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Kaufman, Sarah. "Some Say Bypassing a Higher Education Is Smarter than Paying for a Degree." The Washington Post. 10 Sept. 2010. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
[James] Altucher, president of Formula Capital, says he sees people making bad investment decisions all the time -- and one of them is paying for college. But, it turns out, his anti-college ideas stem from personal experience. After his first year at Cornell University, Altucher says his parents lost money and couldn't afford tuition. So he paid his own way, working 60 hours a week delivering pizza and tutoring, on top of his course load. He left Cornell thousands of dollars in debt. He also left with a degree in computer science. But it took failing at several investment schemes, losing large sums of money and then studying the stock market on his own -analyzing Warren Buffett's decisions so closely he ended up writing a book about him -- for Altucher to learn enough about the financial world to survive in it. He thinks he would have been better off getting the real-world lessons earlier, rather than thrashing himself to pay for school and shouldering so much debt. "There's a billion other things you could do with your money," Altucher says. One option: Invest the money you'd spend on tuition in Treasury bills for your child's retirement. According to Altucher, $200,000 earning 5 percent a year over 50 years would amount to $2.8 million. (1-2)
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Hough, Jack. "DON'T GET THAT COLLEGE DEGREE!" New York Post. 28 June 2009. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Consider two childhood friends, Ernie and Bill. Hard workers with helpful families, each saves exactly $16,594 for college. Ernie doesn't get accepted to a school he likes. Instead, he starts work at 18 and invests his college savings in a mutual fund that tracks the broad stock market. Throughout his life, he makes average yearly pay for a high school graduate with no college, starting at $15,901 after taxes and peaking at $32,538. Each month, he adds to his stock fund 5% of his after-tax income, close to the nation's current savings rate. It returns 8% a year, typical for stock investors. Bill has a typical college experience. He gets into a public college and after two years transfers to a private one. He spends $49,286 on tuition and required fees, the average for such a track. I'm not counting room and board, since Bill must pay for his keep whether he goes to college or not. Bill gets average-size grants, adjusted for average probabilities of receiving them, and so pays $34,044 for college. He leaves school with an average-size student loan and a good interest rate: $17,450 at 5%. The $16,594 he has saved for college, you see, is precisely enough to pay what his loans don't cover. Bill will have higher pay than Ernie his whole life, starting at $23,505 after taxes and peaking at $56,808. Like Ernie, he sets aside 5%. At that rate, it will take him 12 years to pay off his loan. Debt-free at 34, he starts adding to the same index fund as Ernie, making bigger monthly contributions with his higher pay. But when the two reunite at 65 for a retirement party, Ernie will have grown his savings to nearly $1.3 million. Bill will have less than a third of that. (1)
This is a very crucial argument the Pro can make, but it should probably not be used as a separate contention. Instead, it can be woven into another argument or used as a counter when Con brings up the increased earnings begot by a college education. As multiple experts show above, investing money for a college education in the broad stock market would receive a greater return than a degree. College earnings estimates ranges from an extra $200,000 to $1 million both these stock return estimates range from $1.3 to $3 million. When using this argument, also emphasize that student loans and forgoing wages on the college side are like a losing return, whereas a person working out of high school gets wages, experience, and still would have a positive portfolio from the stock market over 40 years.
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Carnevale, Anthony, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl. Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018. Rep. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, June 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.
43 percent of workers with licenses and certificates earn more than their colleagues with an Associates degree. About 27 percent of workers with licenses and certificates earn more than employees with a Bachelors degree, and 31 percent of those with Associates degrees earn more than their counterparts with a Bachelors degree. Licenses and certificates come about from more specific training and lead to professions like electrician or dental hygienist. So we can see that a lot of people might be better off going into training for a career that interests them rather than moving on to college without question and later dropping out or getting a degree in something that is not in high demand.
PREPARING THE WORKERS OF TODAY FOR THE JOBS OF TOMORROW. Rep. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS, July 2009. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
The occupational demands of the future are expected to require skills obtained through post-secondary education and training. Figure 6 shows that occupations requiring higher educational attainment are projected (using the BLS forecasts) to grow much faster than those with lower education requirements. The categories with some education required beyond high school are growing faster than those not requiring post-secondary schooling. The growth is not solely among occupations requiring bachelors degrees; occupations that
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require only and associates degree or a post-secondary vocational award are actually projected to grow slightly faster than occupations requiring a bachelors degree or more. (11-12)
Pathways to Prosperity. Rep. Harvard Graduate School of Education, Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
There will also be exceptionally rapid growth in such healthcare support jobs as nursing aide, home health aide and attendant. Though such positions are still open to highschool graduates, they are increasingly filled by people with some post-secondary education or a certificate. Similarly, over half of massage therapists and dental assistants now have a post-secondary certificate. There will also be a huge number of job openings in socalled blue-collar fields like construction, manufacturing, and natural resources, though many will simply replace retiring baby boomers. These fields will provide nearly 8 million job openings, 2.7 million of which will require a post-secondary credential. In commercial construction, manufacturing, mining and installation, and repair, this kind of post-secondary educationas opposed to a B.A.is often the ticket to a well-paying and rewarding career. (3)
Steinberg, Jacques. "Plan B - Skip College." The New York Times. 15 May 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Professor Vedder, founder of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a research nonprofit in Washington. But the numbers are still relatively small compared to the numbers of nurses aides were going to need. We will need hundreds of thousands of them over the next decade. And much of their training, he added, might be feasible outside the college setting. College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelors degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelors) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelors degree. (1) Professor Vedder likes to ask why 15 percent of mail carriers have bachelors degrees, according to a 1999 federal study. Some of them could have bought a house for what they spent on their education, he said. (1)
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Sum, Andrew. Labor Underutilization Impacts of the Great Recession of 2007-2009: Variations in Labor Underutilization Problems Across Age, Gender, Race-Ethnic, Educational Attainment and Occupational Groups in the U.S., 2009 Fourth Quarter. Rep. Center for Labor Market Studies, Northeastern University, Mar. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Well educated, underemployed workers (recent BA graduates) often are mal-employed working in jobs that do not require college degrees. Only 1 of every 2 bachelor degree holders under age 25 in 2009 was working in a college labor market job. The mal-employed receive very low returns to their investment in a college education. (2)
Vedder, Richard. "Why Did 17 Million Students Go to College?" The Chronicle of Higher Education. 20 Oct. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants. All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelors degree. (1)
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Matgouranis, Christopher. "The Underemployed College Graduate." The Center for College Affordability and Productivity. 18 Oct. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics keeps a superb data base of educational attainment levels by occupation, publishing detailed attainment data for well over 700 professions. But what does this data show? Overwhelmingly this dataset supports the anecdotal evidence that there are legions of underemployed college graduates. The table below highlights just a few of the examples, showing the percentage of workers in a given profession who possess at least a bachelor's degree.
Profession Flight attendants Retail salespersons Customer service representatives Baggage porters and bellhops Secretaries (not legal/medical/executive) Hotel, motel, and resort desk clerks Telemarketers Taxi drivers and chauffeurs Manicurists and pedicurists Shampooers Locksmiths and safe repairers Telecomm. installers & repairers
Proportion with a College Degree 29.8% 24.5% 21.6% 17.4% 16.6% 16.1% 15.8% 15.2% 11.5% 11.5% 10.2% 13.1%
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Ponnuru, Ramesh. "The Case Against College Education." TIME Magazine. 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
It has been estimated that, in 2007, most people in their 20s who had college degrees were not in jobs that required them: another sign that we are pushing kids into college who will not get much out of it but debt. (1)
"The Real Education Crisis: Are 35% of All College Degrees in New England Unnecessary?"The New England Journal of Higher Education. 30 Nov. 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. Over-education" and malemployment are rampant in every one of the New England states: Connecticut has 248,062 unnecessary degrees; Maine has 79,738 unnecessary degrees; Massachusetts has 531,669 unnecessary degrees; New Hampshire has 119,705 unnecessary degrees; Rhode Island has 70,904 unnecessary degrees; and Vermont has 51,026 unnecessary degrees.
Vedder, Richard, and Matthew Denhart. "Why Does College Cost so Much?" CNN. 2 Dec. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011.
Nondegree forms of education need more emphasis, since the number of college graduates exceeds the number of jobs available in occupations for which degrees historically have been desirable -- jobs in the managerial, technical and professional areas. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2008 some 29.7% of flight attendants, 24.4% of retail salespersons and 17.4% of baggage porters had a bachelor's degree or higher. According to my analysis of the data, more than 17 million college graduates were "underemployed" in 2008. Surely these people needed some form of post high school training, but an expensive four-year degree may not have been the best approach. Rather, perhaps we should be encouraging some students to develop skills at lower costs by utilizing innovative free courses provided by groups such as the Saylor Foundation and Khan Academy. (1)
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The previous two sections will be summed up and strategized here. One main takeaway from these sections is that often new jobs are emerging in a modern economy which can out-earn college grads. Additionally, too many people go to college and do not receive an adequate education and therefore end up working a job that does not require a college degree. This is a very convincing argument as a contention when used in tandem with other arguments presented in the brief. The key is to first set up a picture of many students going to college because thats what is expected of them; they wander from course to course with no real purpose and take on a large debt. Then, when they go into the work world many cannot find a proper job and end up in a job that does not require a college degree. The end result is debt, years of working experience and wages lost, and then you really push the point that there are better alternatives that pay well and do not need a college degree. This argument operates under the framework of looking at the entire picture of college education. You are not trying to deny that those who are very motivated, focused and well-resourced should go to college. You are instead arguing that these types of people are in the vast minority and that most people are better suited to other types of training and career objectives.
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Censky, Annalyn. "Rising College Costs Price out Middle Class." CNN. 13 June 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Meanwhile, the amount of federal aid available to individual students has also failed to keep up. Since 1992, the maximum available through government-subsidized student loans has remained at $23,000 for a four-year degree. "There does seem to be this growing disparity between income and the cost of higher education," said Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "At the same time, there's been a fundamental shift, moving away from public subsidization, to individuals bearing more of the cost of higher education." Facing that disparity, it's no wonder then that two other trends have emerged: Families are taking on unprecedented levels of debt or downgrading their child's education from a four-year, to a two-year, degree to cut costs. (1)
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About two thirds of students graduating with four-year degrees recently did so with loans hanging over their heads, and their average bill comes in at a whopping $23,186, according to FinAid.org. Of those, Kantrowitz estimates that about half will still be repaying their loans in 20 years -- the traditional student loan period. And for many, that may very well mean they won't be able to buy a home, save for retirement or fund the next generation's education. "They could still be paying back their own student loans, when their children are in college," he said (1)
Hacker, Andrew, and Claudia Dreifus. "The Debt Crisis at American Colleges." The Atlantic. 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
As this semester begins, college loans are nearing the $1 trillion mark, more than what all households owe on their credit cards. Fully two-thirds of our undergraduates have gone into debt, many from middle class families, who in the past paid for much of college from savings. The College Board likes to say that the average debt is "only" $27,650. What the Board doesn't say is that when personal circumstances go wrong, as can happen in a recession, interest, late payment penalties, and other charges can bring the tab up to $100,000. Those going on to graduate school, as upwards of half will, can end up facing twice that. (1) With mortgage defaults, banks seize and resell the home. But if a degree can't be sold, that doesn't deter the banks. They essentially wrote the student loan law, in which the fine-print says they aren't "dischargable." So even if you file for bankruptcy, the payments continue due. Hence these stern word from Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of College Registrars and Admissions Officers. "You will be hounded for life," he warns. "They will garnish your wages. They will intercept your tax refunds. You become ineligible for federal employment." He adds that any professional license can be revoked and Social Security checks docked when you retire. We can't think of any other statute with such sadistic provisions. (1)
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"Alabama Remedial Education: One-Third of Students Unprepared for College." The Huffington Post. 13 July 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
According to the latest numbers collected by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education (ACHE), 34.4 percent of students enrolled in a two- or four-year college program in 2010 required at least one remedial course in math or reading (1) According to the 2008 study Diploma to Nowhere by the nonprofit Strong American Schools, remedial education in public universities costs the federal government between $2.31 and $2.89 billion annually. In reality, the cost is even higher, as students are essentially taking classes over again. In Alabama alone, remedial education costs the state economy $51 million directly, and an additional $29 million in lost income. (1) nearly 80 percent of the students surveyed believed they were ready for college when they left high school, and four out of five in remedial education had a high school GPA of 3.0. (1) Jerome Cook, principal of Bessemer City High School told the Birmingham News: I don't think it's fair that some of these kids are leaving with As and Bs and then go into college and have to take remedial courses. I
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think they've dumbed down the curriculum trying to make sure students have good GPAs and test scores, and it's hurting these kids in the long run. (1)
Riede, Paul. "Report: Only 37 Percent of New York High School Freshmen Become College- and Career-ready within Four Years." The Syracuse Post-Standard. 15 June 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
The state Education Department released a report Tuesday that showed high school graduation rates inching up across New YorkBut the statewide college- and career-ready rate for the same cohort of students was only 37 percent. (1) The Regents point to research that found that 44 percent of New York high school graduates who attend twoyear colleges for the first time need remedial help. Thirteen percent of those who enter four-year colleges need extra help. (1)
Hammon, Besty. "Most Oregon High School Grads Unprepared for College, Half Would Fail Freshman College Math, Report Says." The Oregonian. 15 Aug. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Nearly three-fourths of college-bound graduates of Oregon high schools are unprepared for college, primarily because of weaknesses in math and science, a report out today warns.
The report is based on the ACT test scores of nearly 12,000 students, or 35 percent, from Oregon's high school class of 2011. Results indicate that college-readiness levels are stagnant among the state's college-bound students. That's true despite a proliferation of high school calculus courses and the state's recent drive to offer more Advanced Placement math and science. Fully half of the Oregon students who took the national college-entrance exam are unprepared to pass freshman college math, and two-thirds are unprepared for college science, ACT Inc., nonprofit maker of the ACT test, reported. (1)
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Wolfgang, Ben. "Scores Show Students Arent Ready for College." The Washington Times. 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
Three out of four graduates arent fully prepared for college and likely need to take at least one remedial class, according to the latest annual survey from the nonprofit testing organization ACT, which measured half of the nations high school seniors in English, math, reading and science proficiency. Only 25 percent cleared all of ACTs college preparedness benchmarks, while 75 percent likely will spend part of their freshman year brushing up on high-school-level course work. The 2011 class is best prepared for college-level English courses, with 73 percent clearing the bar in that subject. Students are most likely to need remedial classes in science and math, the report says. (1) While often frustrating for professors who are forced to spend a semester teaching concepts their students should have learned by the end of 12th grade, remedial classes also carry more serious consequences. Students are much more likely to drop out of college if they feel that they are simply repeating high school, said Bob Wise, former West Virginia governor and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington-based advocacy group. Taxpayers also suffer, Mr. Wise said, by paying twice for students to take high-school-level classes again, since most remedial work doesnt count toward college graduation. In the 2007-08 academic year, the alliance estimates, remedial courses cost about $5.6 billion $3.6 billion in direct educational costs such as taxpayer contributions to state universities and another $2 billion in lost wages, a result of giving up on higher education and missing out on the bigger paychecks that tend to come with college degrees. (1)
Bailey, Melissa. "Report: City Students Not Ready For College." New Haven Independent. 16 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Startling new data shows 89 percent of New Haven Public School graduates need to catch up in English and math before they can start earning credits at Connecticut public colleges and universities. (1) Statewide, 73 percent of Connecticut public high school graduates at state community colleges are recommended for developmental English or math classes, according to a toolkit the council put together. Developmental means courses that carry no college credit and are designed to improve students basic skills so that they can be successful in courses that carry college credit.
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At Connecticut state universities, the remediation rate is slightly better: 66 percent of public school grads enroll in remedial or developmental English or math freshman year. In the state university system, remedial courses carry no college credit and are designed to improve students basic skills. (1) At New Havens local university, Southern Connecticut State University, the remediation rate was a whopping 92.8 percent. At Gateway Community College, it was 85.6 percent. Those figures are based on students who enrolled in state universities or college students immediately after graduating from public Connecticut high schools in the spring of 2010. Remediation rates matter in part because theyre a predictor of success: Students who need to take even one developmental course in college are less likely to earn a degree than their counterparts who do not need remediation, according to P-20s report.
Betinger, Eric, and Bridget Long. ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF UNDER-PREPARED STUDENTS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: DOES COLLEGE REMEDIATION WORK? Rep. NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, May 2005. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
In some cases, academic deficiencies are so severe that colleges choose to expel the students. For instance, during the fall of 2001, the California State University system kicked out more than 2,200 students nearly 7 percent of the freshman class for failing to master basic English and math skills (3) by increasing the number of requirements and extending the time to degree, remediation may negatively impact student outcomes such as persistence, major choice, and eventual labor market returns. Moreover, the cost of remediation is significant. In Ohio, public colleges spent approximately $15 million teaching 260,000 credit hours of high school-level courses to freshmen in 2000; another $8.4 million was spent on older students. In addition, the 20,000 freshmen in the courses paid $15 million in tuition for their remediation as well as used financial aid resources and sacrificed foregone wages. (3-4)
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Schemo, Diana Jean. "At 2-Year Colleges, Students Eager but Unready." The New York Times. 2 Sept. 2006. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Though higher education is now a near-universal aspiration, researchers suggest that close to half the students who enter college need remedial coursesThe efforts, educators say, have not cut back on the thousands of students who lack basic skills. Instead, the colleges have clustered those students in community colleges, where their chances of succeeding are low and where taxpayers pay a second time to bring them up to college level. The phenomenon has educators struggling with fundamental questions about access to education, standards and equal opportunity.Michael W. Kirst, a Stanford professor who was a co-author of a report on the gap between aspirations and college attainment, said that 73 percent of students entering community colleges hoped to earn four-year degrees, but that only 22 percent had done so after six years. You can get into school, Professor Kirst said. Thats not a problem. But you cant succeed. Nearly half the 14.7 million undergraduates at two- and four-year institutions never receive degrees.
Of course, the fact that these students are taking the classes they needed in the first place is a good thing. They are building a foundation of knowledge. However, the argument that the Pro needs to make is that these students are too often shoved into college by a society that emphasizes a diploma at all coststhe result is that unprepared students take on debt to move forward in the educational system and then drop out because they do not have the level of knowledge required to succeed. We see some evidence on the culture of college in the statistic that 80% of high school grads think theyre ready for college. Its an atmosphere that is dangerous and pushed kids in the wrong direction. The end result is debt and no degree; this is certainly not worth it. This isnt to say that colleges are at fault for these students being unprepared and at a high-risk for dropping out. Indeed, it is a comment on our K-12 education system. But it is still highly relevant to the debate. We are talking about the reality of the situation here, and Pro must emphasize that we have to deal with every student looking at the possibility of college, not just those who come from elite prep schools and wealthy families.
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Ponnuru, Ramesh. "The Case Against College Education." TIME Magazine. 24 Feb. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Our high college drop-out rate 40% of kids who enroll in college don't get a degree within six years may be a sign that we're trying to push too many people who aren't suited for college to enroll. (1)
Goldstein, Dana. "Should All Kids Go to College?" The Nation. 15 June 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Just 53 percent of students who enter four-year colleges graduate within six years. At two-year community colleges, hal of al st f l within three years. One fifth of all students who borrow to pay for college drop out, and nearly one in five who drop out leave only after accumulating $20,000 in debt. (1)
Pathways to Prosperity. Rep. Harvard Graduate School of Education, Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Only 56 percent of those enrolling in a four-year college attain a bachelors degree after six years, and less than 30 percent of those who enroll in community college succeed in obtaining an associates degree within three years. (6) In short, the majority of students who go on to college fail to earn a degree on time, and many of those never successfully complete their degree. As a result, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States now has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. (10) Given these dismal attainment numbers, a narrowly defined college for all goalone that does not include a much stronger focus on career-oriented programs that lead to occupational credentialsseems doomed to fail. (8) foundationbriefs.com Page 42 of 123
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"Cracking down on For-profit Colleges." The Week Magazine. 16 Sept. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011. <http://theweek.com/article/index/219247/cracking-down-on-for-profitcolleges>.
Who attends for-profit colleges? Almost 2 million Americans who want college degrees but can't get them at conventional schools. Forprofits such as the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, and DeVry University target this market by offering degrees that can be obtained online or at night classes in convenient locations. Their students are largely adults already working in low-paid jobs, veterans, and others who can't get admitted to, or commit the time to, conventional colleges. Blacks and Hispanics make up nearly half of enrollees at for-profits. Harry Alford, the head of the National Black Chamber of Commerce, credits for-profit colleges with "stepping up to the plate and taking on the daunting task of educating 'high-risk' students." Over the last decade, the forprofits have boomed: There are now 2,000 such colleges, currently enrolling 12 percent of all students in higher education up from 3 percent a decade ago. (1) Do these colleges deliver on their promises? No, says a growing group of critics, including educators, former students, and the federal Department of Education. They say the schools provide dubious coursework and degrees that don't lead to good jobs, but do leave students with crushing debt. Most students never complete their degrees. The University of Phoenix, for example, is the industry leader, yet it graduates less than 9 percent of its bachelor's degree candidates foundationbriefs.com Page 43 of 123
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within six years. Schools have been accused of misleading applicants about loan costs, exaggerating potential post-graduation salaries, and targeting disabled veterans and homeless people to boost enrollment. Former students of for-profit colleges now account for about half of all student-loan defaults. "I don't think I learned anything at the Art Institute [of Philadelphia], other than how to get scammed by somebody," said Taryn Zychal, who accumulated $150,000 in loans, only to find that no other institution would recognize her academic credits. Legions of other students tell similar stories. For-profit students pay an average of $31,000 a year for four-year degrees almost double the average cost of public universities. The country's largest for-profit college company, the Apollo Group, which owns the University of Phoenix, has nearly 400,000 students and revenues of $4.9 billion. In 2009, the CEO of Strayer, a chain of for-profits with more than 60,000 students, took home nearly $42 million; that year, the president of Harvard made less than $700,000. (1) Who pays the colleges' tuitions? Mostly the taxpayers. For-profit colleges receive an average of three quarters of their revenue from federal grants and loans. "Some for-profit schools are efficient government-subsidy collectors first and educational institutions second," a recent congressional committee report said. Critics of the industry say recruiters target poor and minority students precisely because such students can tap the deep well of federal aid money. In 2000, $4.6 billion in federal college loans and grants flowed to for-profit colleges; last year they received more than $26 billion. A quarter of all federal student-loan money and almost a third of Pell Grants, which are earmarked for low-income students now goes to for-profit institutions. "Millions of low-income students are borrowing heavily to attend for-profit colleges," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, "and too many of them are dropping out, failing to get a job, and leaving taxpayers with the bill." (1) Last month, the Department of Justice and four states filed suit against Education Management Corporation, the country's second-largest for-profit college company, charging that it fraudulently collected $11 billion in federal aid, and illegally based recruiters' pay on how many students they enrolled. (1) In 2005, California-based Bridgepoint Education bought Franciscan University of the Prairies, a failing religious college with 332 students in Clinton, Iowa. Six years later, the school, renamed Ashford University, has been transformed into one of the biggest online colleges in the country, with 78,000 students. Bridgepoint posted $216 million in profits last year, while collecting nearly 87 percent of its revenue from federal aid. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) says the college is "an absolute scam" that has enriched Bridgepoint while providing students with little of value. Harkin's committee found that 84 percent of students enrolled in two-year degree programs at Ashford in 2008 had dropped out by 2010, and that the school employed more than 1,700 student recruiters but just one job-placement specialist. "In the world of for-profit higher education," Harkin said, "spectacular business success is possible despite an equally spectacular record of student failure." (1)
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Hechinger, John. "For-Profit Colleges Violated Rules on Cheating, GAO Says." Businessweek. 29 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Seven out of 12 for-profit colleges attended online by undercover U.S. investigators violated school policies on cheating, grading standards and loan counseling, a report by the Government Accountability Office found. One or more instructors at two colleges repeatedly noted that the students were submitting plagiarized work, yet took no action, according to the agency, Congresss investigative arm. One student submitted photos of celebrities and political figures to reply to an essay question and earned a passing grade, the agency said. (1)
Perez, Erica. "With Low Job Placement Rates, For-profit Colleges Risk Losing Accreditation." California Watch/Center for Investigative Reporting. 18 Nov. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
New figures show two California campuses owned by for-profit education firm Career Education Corp. appear to have placed fewer than 65 percent of graduates in jobs the minimum job placement rate required by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools. And while Career Education officials disclosed earlier this month that job placement rates at 36 of 49 health education and art and design schools had fallen below the minimum required by the accrediting agency, the new data show that as many as 45 of the campuses may have missed the mark. At the International Academy of Design & Technology in Sacramento, for example, an estimated 39 percent of students who graduated between July 2010 and June 2011 got jobs in a related field. (1) Although students in the fashion design and marketing associate's degree program paid about $17,000 per year in tuition and fees, the new data shows fewer than 1 in 5 graduates of that program actually got jobs in the field. Career Education officials disclosed earlier this month that an independent investigation by outside counsel found that most of its health and art and design campuses had inflated the 2010-11 job placement rates that were about to be reported to accreditors. The investigation was prompted by a subpoena from the New York attorney generals office. (1)
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Senator Tom Harkin. The Return on the Federal Investment in For-Profit Education: Debt Without a Diploma September 30,. Rep. The United States Senate, 30 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
In total, out of 16 for-profit schools analyzed, 57 percent of students who entered school between July 2008 and June 2009 have withdrawn. Over a three year period, an estimated 1.9 million students have left the 16 for-profit schools, most with nothing to show for their time in a for-profit school but student loan debt. (1) More than 95 percent of students at two-year for-profit schools and 93 percent at four-year for-profit schools took out student loans in 2007, while only 16.6 percent of students attending community colleges and 44.3 percent at public four-year institutions borrowed during the same period. (1) According to a 2005 report published by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, students who drop out without completing their degree were ten times more likely to default on their student loans, which may foreclose the opportunity to earn their diploma at another school. (2) The harsh reality for students attending for-profit colleges is that even a brief enrollment can result in significant debt. The high rate of borrowing by students attending for-profit schools is due in part to higher tuition rates. According to GAOs August 4th testimony at a hearing of the HELP Committee, of the 15 schools investigated, 14 had higher tuition than the nearest public college offering a similar program. One particular forprofit college offered a computer-aided drafting certificate for $13,945, when the same program at a community college would cost $520. The cost of an associates degree offered by the second largest for-profit is over $38,000, and a bachelors degree from the same school can cost up to $96,500. Thus, a student who enrolls in a for-profit school even for a short period of time can amass many thousands of dollars of debt that can take years to repay. To estimate the student loan burdens of students withdrawing from these institutions this analysis looked at how long they remained enrolled. Among students who withdrew from the 16 schools, median attendance was approximately 20 weeks. If that student attended full-time and took 12 credits per term he or she could still incur a substantial debt. For the five schools in the chart above, a student attending for 15 to 22 weeks could incur a tuition debt from $8,800 and $11,300. (7)
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The for-profit college argument is very strong on the Pro side simply because it is the most clear-cut. Many for-profit colleges use backwards and predatory actions to ensnare minorities and veterans, and then suck money from the government and force these students to take out loans. Often, the cost of a for-profit college is greater than a normal college but the quality of education is far, far worse. When looking at this argument, be sure to understand what perspective you are taking on the resolution. If you are taking the student perspective, then for-profit colleges probably do not have a big impact on the debate because one can simply avoid them for better community or four-year colleges. However, if you are taking on the researcher perspective, then for-profit colleges are a big deal because so many people are misled and do end up falling into the trap.
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Vedder, Richard. "Higher Education and Economic Development." Mackinac Center. 19 Jan. 2007. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://www.mackinac.org/8175>.
Please see Richard Veddder in the Author Index for more information Much of the higher productivity of college graduates results not from what they learn in college, but from personal attributes that would make them better workers than high school graduates in any case, regardless of their education. Attributes like greater work discipline, higher innate intelligence, great conscientiousness, and so forth.
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Arum, Richard, and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses. Rep. University of Chicago Press, 28 Jan. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
No statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills for 45 percent of the students in the sample (13) No statistically significant gains for 36 percent of the students over four years (14) This study followed 2,341 students from 2005-2007 enrolled in 24 diverse four-year institutions and 1,666 students from 2005-2009 over 29 diverse four-year institutions. It tested these students in a wide range of topics that gave insight into those students development of critical thinking, complex reasoning, etc. The results are above and can be interpreted in this way: in the first two years of college, almost half of sophomores learned little to nothing in the above critical learning areas, and by the end of college that proportion decreased to a still-scary over one-third. What follows are news reports dedicated to this study that analyze and reveal more trends from this indepth investigation of college education.
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"A Lack Of Rigor Leaves Students 'Adrift' In College : NPR." NPR : National Public Radio. 9 Feb. 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Part of the reason for a decline in critical thinking skills could be a decrease in academic rigor; 35 percent of students reported studying five hours per week or less, and 50 percent said they didn't have a single course that required 20 pages of writing in their previous semester. According to the study, one possible reason for a decline in academic rigor and, consequentially, in writing and reasoning skills, is that the principal evaluation of faculty performance comes from student evaluations at the end of the semester. Those evaluations, Arum says, tend to coincide with the expected grade that the student thinks he or she will receive from the instructor. "There's a huge incentive set up in the system [for] asking students very little, grading them easily, entertaining them, and your course evaluations will be high," Arum says. (1) Overall, though, the study found that there has been a 50 percent decline in the number of hours a student spends studying and preparing for classes from several decades ago. "If you go out and talk to college freshmen today, they tell you something very interesting," Arum says. "Many of them will say the following: 'I thought college and university was going to be harder than high school, and my gosh, it turned out it's easier.' " (1) Of course, if one were to apply themselves rigorously to studying, as well as choosing classes that were truly beneficial and not just easy, then this point is easily defeated. The reality, however, is that too many students are NOT studying hard enough, do NOT know the purpose of their education, and therefore receive little benefit from a college education while paying significant costs.
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Marklein, Mary Beth. "Report: First Two Years of College Show Small Gains." USA Today. 18 Jan. 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
35% of students report spending five or fewer hours per week studying alone. Yet, despite an "ever-growing emphasis" on study groups and collaborative projects, students who study in groups tend to have lower gains in learning. 50% said they never took a class in a typical semester where they wrote more than 20 pages; 32% never took a course in a typical semester where they read more than 40 pages per week. (1)
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Cost to Taxpayers
Klor De Alva, Jorge, and Mark Scheider. Who Wins? Who Pays? The Economic Returns and Costs of a Bachelors Degree. Rep. American Institutes for Research, May 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.air.org/files/WhoWins_bookmarked_050411.pdf>. Taxpayers also subsidize the education that students receive in most colleges and universities. This takes the form mostly of direct state appropriations for public universities and tax exemptions for not-for-profit ones. (Pg. 1) Taxpayers subsidize bachelors degrees in nearly all not-for-profit institutions at around $8,000 per degree. In public institutions, the taxpayer investment is more than $60,000. (Pg. 1) Taxpayer subsidies increase dramatically among the most selective institutions, from almost $60,000 in the most selective not-for-profit institutions to well over $100,000 in the most selective public institutions. (Pg. 1) The range of annual taxpayer costs to educate a student is substantial, ranging from an actual gain for taxpayers from for-profit schools of nearly $800 per student per year all the way up to a taxpayer cost of more than $23,000 in the most selective public institutions. When we calculate the taxpayer cost per degree, we estimate that taxpayers are investing around $108,000 for each degree awarded by the most selective public institutions in the country, which is between 60 percent to 72 percent more than the amount they are investing in students in less selective institution. (Pg. 12)
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Con Evidence
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Con: General
General
Lewin, Tamar. "Burden of College Loans on Graduates Grows." The New York Times. 11 Apr. 2011. Web. 3 Dec. 2011.
College is still a really good deal, said Cecilia Rouse, of Princeton, who served on Mr. Obamas Council of Economic Advisers. Even if you dont land a plum job, youre still going to earn more over your lifetime, and the vast majority of graduates can expect to cover their debts. (1)
Greenstone, Michael, and Adam Looney. "Where is the Best Place to Invest $102,000 -- In Stocks, Bonds, or a College Degree?" The Brookings Institution. 25 June 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Warren Buffett recently told Columbia Business school students, Right now, I would pay $100,000 for 10 percent of the future earnings of any of you. (Tucker, 2009). He is not a legendary value investor for nothing: When compared to other investment options, a college degree stands out as one of the best investments one can make. (1) "Are Too Many Students Going to College?" The Chronicle of Higher Education. 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Too-Many-Students-Going/49039/>. In today's society and economy, virtually everyone who has the motivation and stamina should acquire some form of postsecondary education. That is a practical reality of today's economy. Winters: If we are speaking only in terms of a monetary benefit, then the cost of going to college outweighs the benefit when the expected increase in lifetime income is surpassed by the cost of tuition, interest on student loans, and forgone wages while in school. Given what we know about the large economic return for a year of college, and even with tuition continuing to increase, we have not yet reached such a point. Maybe we never will. Schneider, Mark, and Michelle Yin. The High Cost of Low Graduation Rates: How Much Does Dropping Out of College Really Cost? Rep. American Institutes for Research, Aug. 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.air.org/files/AIR_High_Cost_of_Low_Graduation_Aug2011.pdf>. The Obama administration sees the successful completion of postsecondary education as essential to American competitiveness. Governors likewise see the economic future of their states as dependent on the development of a highly educated and skilled workforce that can compete with other states and other nations. (Pg. 1)
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Con: General
There also are more immediate reasons for governors to want more college graduates in their states. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 with a college degree, working yearround, earn about 40 percent more than similar age adults with some college who have not completed a degree, and about two-thirds more than similar age adults with just a high school diploma. These annual differences accumulate over time, and the lifetime earnings of a college graduate can exceed those of a high school graduate by as much as a half million dollars. Given these higher earnings, many governors are looking at a more educated population as a way of dealing with the growing fiscal crises they face; most states have state income taxes, and state treasuries benefit directly from the higher incomes earned by college graduates. In short, for graduates, for taxpayers, and for policymakers, there are clear fiscal benefits to getting more students to complete their college degrees. But remember, American colleges and universities are graduating only slightly more than half the students who walk through their doors. Much of the cost of dropping out is borne by individual students, each of whom may accumulate large debts in the unsuccessful pursuit of a degree and give up the higher earnings that accrue after obtaining a bachelors degree. (Pg. 1) We are aware that the U.S. unemployment rate remains high, and this situation has raised questions about the economic returns of earning a bachelors degree. Given current articles in the press about the hard times facing college graduates, readers may question the size of the gains we have calculated in this report. However, we believe that even in difficult economic times, students and federal and state governments stand to benefit significantly from having more college graduates. First, unemployment rates vary significantly by educational level: Americans with bachelors degrees and higher have an unemployment rate that is about half that of Americans with some college or associate degrees. Second, the most recent data from the American Community Survey show that over time, even in tough economic times, a degree pays off. Finally, the current recession will not last forever, and the bachelors degree has proven to have economic value in hard times and boom times alike. (Pg. 2)
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Con: General
Williams, Adriane, and Watson Swail. Is More Better: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society. Rep. Educational Policy Institute, May 2005. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.educationalpolicy.org/pdf/gates.pdf>.
Please see Educational Policy Institute in the Organization Index for more information. Four-year graduates make almost twice as much as non-college graduates; Four-year degree holders are more likely to be employed, and when unemployed, likely to find new jobs faster; and Even two-year degree holders are more likely to enjoy a higher quality of life than those who have only a high school diploma. The private economic returns to postsecondary education are real for every group and subgroup: College graduates of every race and ethnicity, men and women, members of each socioeconomic group, and families of all configurations are better off than their non-degree holding peers; Non-wage economic benefits accrue to degree holders of all types: better employee benefit packages better health care longer vacations better work condition
Studies show that people with postsecondary degrees enjoy increased life expectancy and better general health; improved quality of life for self and offspring; and increased social status
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Lower Unemployment
Carnevale, Anthony. "College Is Still Worth It." Inside Higher Ed. 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011.
It is true that unemployment rates are relatively high among college grads. When it rains long enough and hard enough, everyone gets wet. But the unemployment rate for all workers with college degrees is a quarter the rate for high school graduates. And its true, as the New York Times pointed out in an editorial on December 13, that the unemployment rate for freshly minted college grads was 9.2 percent, not much different from the 9.8 percent unemployment rate for all workers. But the Times didnt bother to mention that the unemployment rate for freshly minted high school graduates was 35 percent.
Greenstone, Michael, and Adam Looney. "How Do Recent College Grads Really Stack Up? Employment and Earnings for Graduates of the Great Recession." The Brookings Institution. 3 June 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Data from a sample of the youth population in 2010 helps illustrate the advantages of entering the postrecession economy armed with a college degree. The chart below shows the employment (blue bars) and average weekly earnings (green line) of all 23-24 year olds who were not attending school in 2010. As we see in the population, the differences in employment outcome by education are significant.
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(1) Those with a college degree are in significantly better shape than their peers, with 88 percent of college graduates employed in 2010. And, in addition to having a better chance of finding a job, they are making more money. The average weekly earnings of those with a college degree was almost double the earnings of those with only a high school diploma, at $581 versus $305. Young adults with some college had an average employment rate of 79 percent. Those with only a high school diploma had a much lower employment rate of 64 percent. Young adults without even a high school diploma fared far worseonly 43 percent were working. (1) This evidence is useful as its own point. However, it also serves as a counter to those who will claim that recent graduates are being disproportionally hurt by the recession and therefore at this time college isnt worth it. In fact, this shows that during a recession education is likely to serve as a security measure. It can also counter the attack that college is risky because many people will not finish college and thus be burdened with costs and no diploma. This evidence illustrates that even those who do not complete college are still far better off than if they had simply stopped at a high school diploma.
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Bachelors degrees will climb from 21 percent to 23 percent, while the number who require graduate degrees may decline slightly, from 11 percent to 10 percent over the same period. (Pg. 15) Between 2008 and 2018 there will be just under 47 million job openings, which will include 14.4 million new and 32.4 million replacement jobs. Some 29.9 million of these openings63 percent of the totalwill require at least some college education. Even a cursory glance at the numbers show that the opportunities for workers at the bottom end of the educational attainment spectrum are becoming much more limited. Here is a cumulative look at how the 46.8 million openings will break down: (Pg. 26) 4.4 million, or 9 percent of the total, will be open to high school dropouts; 12.5 million, or 27 percent, will be open to workers with high school diplomas but no further education; 8.2 million, or 17 percent, will be open to workers with at least some college but no degree; 5.7 million, or 12 percent, will be open to workers with Associates degrees; 11.1 million, or 24 percent, will be open to workers with Bachelors degrees; 4.9 million, or 10 percent, will be open to workers with Masters degrees or better.
Economists increasingly worry that Americas postsecondary education system cannot keep up with historic increases in the demand for college-educated workers. To explore that concern, we created a stock and flow model to forecast the supply of such workers through 2018. The worry is justified. Demand for workers with college educations will outpace supply to the tune of 300,000 per year. By 2018, the postsecondary system will have produced 3 million fewer college graduates than demanded by the labor market. (Pg. 16)
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Pathways to Prosperity. Rep. Harvard Graduate School of Education, Feb. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
we are struck by the work of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. The Center projects that the U.S. economy will create some 47 million job openings over the 10-year period ending in 2018. Nearly two-thirds of these jobs, in the Centers estimation, will require that workers have at least some post-secondary education (2)
Carnevale, Anthony. "College Is Still Worth It." Inside Higher Ed. 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011. <http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/01/14/carnevale_college_is_still_worth_it_for_americ ans>. It is important to note that current evidence demonstrates increasing demand for college graduates, and the future promises more of the same. By 2018, our own projections from the Help Wanted study show that 63 percent of jobs nationwide will require some form of postsecondary degree. The reality is that jobs come and go with economic cycles. But what lies beneath the economic cycles, and what has remained constant, is the relentless engine of technological change that demands more skilled workers. There is no indication that the trend has suddenly reversed itself. Our own forthcoming research shows that we have under-produced college graduates by almost 10 million since 1983. We also find in Help Wanted that through 2018, at least three million jobs that require postsecondary education and training will be unfilled due to lack of supply. The share of jobs for those with a high school education or less is shrinking. In 1973, high school graduates and dropouts accounted for 72 percent of jobs, while by 2007 it was 41 percent. The opposite has happened for those with at least some college: the share of jobs has increased from 28 percent in 1973 to 59 percent in 2007, and is projected to be 63 percent by 2018. Likewise, the share of national wage income from college-educated workers has increased from 38 percent to 73 percent since 1970, and there is every reason to believe that this trend will continue. We believe there is no doubt about the requirements of our fast-approaching economic future: we need more college graduates, not fewer. But at the very time we need our higher-education system to kick into high gear, it is under pressure to apply the brakes instead.
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One of the criticisms associated with going to college at the moment is that there are such limited jobs available that many graduates are unable to find work despite having invested heavily in their education. This in turn is leaving them with significant amounts of student debt. As the above quote points out, skipping college is actually one of the worst things you can do during a recession. Not only are there fewer jobs available, but those jobs that are lost are often low skill jobs. Thus, although it may be hard for graduates to find a job, it is much harder for their lesseducated peers to find a job. Additionally, recessions eventually end and education can position one well to take advantage of the rapid growth and innovation that tends to follow a recession.
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Greenstone, Michael, and Adam Looney. "Where is the Best Place to Invest $102,000 -- In Stocks, Bonds, or a College Degree?" The Brookings Institution. 25 June 2011. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
We are including the setup to this evidence because it gives you a great idea on all of the costs of education and how they are overcome. Additionally, you will have a better understanding of the methodology of this study and therefore be better able to defend it in round. As we are all aware, a college degree is a significant investment involving up-front costs of money and time. First, there are the financial outlays: the cost of tuition and fees (but not room and boardyou need to eat and sleep whether or not you go to college). The total average cost of a four-year college degree (public and private) is roughly $48,000, and a two-year associates degree costs about $5,200.1 An additional cost of college is the foregone earnings or opportunity cost of not working. On average, 18 and 19 year olds right out of high school earn about $11,600 per year, while 20 and 21 year olds with a high school degree average about $15,400 per year (this average reflects the fact that high school workers are less likely to find a full-time job and more likely to be unemployed). When you add up the various costs of college, the total investment for a four-year college degree is about $102,000; for a two-year associates degree, its about $28,000. These significant costs lead to the question, Is college worth it? Put another way, would an 18 year old be better served by investing in college or putting that money into the stock market or with some other type of investment?
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To answer this question, imagine that you sit down your 18 year old daughter and offer her $102,000 to either pay for college or to invest elsewhere. If she chooses to invest in college, she will have the job opportunities and earnings of a college graduate for the remainder of her working years (until she is 65). If she chooses the latter, shell face the job prospects and earning power of a high school graduate. These two paths are starkly different, as shown in the following chart. At age 22, the average college graduate earns about 70 percent more than the average person with a high school degree only. But that is only the beginning. For instance, in 2010, a college graduate at age 50 (the peak of her career) earns approximately $46,500 more than someone with only a high school diploma.
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Further, at the peak of her earning power, the average worker with only a high school degree earns only about as much as a college graduate one year out of school. In other words, the average college graduate will surpass the highest earnings of the average high school graduate soon after graduating. (1) Its clear that college graduates fare better than their peers with a high school degree only. But from an investment perspective are these higher earnings worth the up-front cost of $102,000? We answer this question by calculating the rate of return to college compared to other investments, shown in the figure below. The $102,000 investment in a four-year college yields a rate of return of 15.2 percent per year more than double the average return over the last 60 years experienced in the stock market (6.8 percent), and more than five times the return to investments in corporate bonds (2.9 percent), gold (2.3 percent), long-term government bonds (2.2 percent), or housing (0.4 percent).
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At first blush, the value of the associates degree really stands out because it provides a higher percentage return of over 20 percent. However, this impressive return mostly reflects the much lower cost of an associates degree relative to a four-year degree rather than a boost to long-run earnings. When compared to the lifetime earnings of four-year college graduates, workers with an associates degree still earn a good deal less. Thus, the rate of return does not tell the full story. (1)
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Carnevale, Anthony, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl. Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018. Rep. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, June 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. <http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/FullReport.pdf>.
Wage data, not surprisingly, correlate with this movement into and out of the middle class based on access to postsecondary education. This means that the economy is demanding more and more workers with postsecondary education and employers are willing to pay more for them. Consider that, since 1983, among prime-age workers between the ages of 25 and 54: Earnings of high school dropouts have fallen by 2 percent; Earnings of high school graduates have increased by 13 percent; Earnings of people with some college or an Associates degree have increased by 15 percent; Earnings of people with Bachelors degrees have increased by 34 percent; Earnings of people with graduate degrees have increased by 55 percent.
Clearly, there is a hierarchical relationship between formal education level and annual wages, which reflects the compensation that employers are willing to pay to workers, on average, for the knowledge, skills, and abilities they attained at every consecutive education level. College graduates earn more relative to high school graduates, and continue to do so, which is the most significant signal that the economy is demanding more highly skilled workers. The increased earning power conferred by postsecondary education and training is both tangible and lucrative over a workers lifetime. Among other things, the chart shows that:
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The range in lifetime earnings by educational attainment is greatest between high school dropouts and professional degreesa range of $1,198,000 to $4,650,000, or a difference of $3,452,000. A high school degree is worth about $569,000 more than being a dropout. Having some college but no degree or a postsecondary certificate is worth about $473,000 more than a high school degree. An Associates degree is worth about $15,000 more than some college but no degree. A Bachelors degree is worth about $1.1 million than an Associates degree. A Masters degree is worth $457,000 more than a Bachelors degree. A Doctoral degree is worth about $193,000 more than a Masters degree. A Professional degree is worth about $621,000 more than a Doctoral degree.
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Klor De Alva, Jorge, and Mark Scheider. Who Wins? Who Pays? The Economic Returns and Costs of a Bachelors Degree. Rep. American Institutes for Research, May 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.air.org/files/WhoWins_bookmarked_050411.pdf>. In terms of wages, a bachelors degree, whether from a public, a not-for-profit, or a for-profit institution, pays a handsome net financial reward in comparison to a high school diplomaa reward that over a lifetime can vary, on average, from more than $230,000 at less selective not-for-profit colleges (such as the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and Dowling College in New York) to well over $500,000 at the most competitive public or not-for-profit institutions (such as the University of California at Los Angeles and Amherst College). (Pg. 1)
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Cheeseman Day, Jennifer, and Eric Newburger. The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings. Rep. U.S. Census Bureau, July 2002. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
Over the past 25 years, earnings differences have grown among workers with different levels of educational attainment. As Figure 2 shows, in 1975, full-time, year- round workers with a bachelors degree had 1.5 times the annual earnings of workers with only a high school diploma. By 1999, this ratio had risen to 1.8. Workers with an advanced degree, who earned 1.8 times the earnings of high school graduates in 1975, averaged 2.6 times the earnings of workers with a high school diploma in 1999. During the same period, the relative earnings of the least educated workers fell. While in 1975, full-time, year-round workers with- out a high school diploma earned 0.9 times the earnings of workers with a high school diploma; by 1999, they were earning only 0.7 times the average earnings of high school graduates. (3)
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Earnings estimates are about $1.0 million (in 1999 dollars) for high school dropouts, while completing high school would increase earnings by another quarter-million dollars (to $1.2 million). People who attended some college (but did not earn a degree) might expect work-life earnings of about $1.5 million, and slightly more for people with associates degrees ($1.6 million). Over a work-life, individuals who have a bachelors degree would earn on average $2.1 million about one- third more than workers who did not finish college, and nearly twice as much as workers with only a high school diploma. (3-4) This study looks at earning from the ages of 25-64, and as such does not account for a major argument on the Pro, namely that while students are in college and not earning, non-students can work. Even still, if you were to add earnings for a high school educated worker from the ages of 18-25 at his/her average salary of $30,400 this would not come close to matching the earnings of the college graduate. Account for the likelihood that actual pay for those years is likely to be lower because of a lack of experience, that high school graduates are less-likely to have full time jobs, and are more likely to be hurt in recessions, then you can see the real value of a college education.
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The Pro side will often make the argument that college has simply gotten too expensive. That maybe it was worth it when people did not have to take out so much debt or a student could put him or herself through college by working. However, college should be viewed as an investment and through this lens, it is clear that college is an increasingly beneficial investment. Indeed, while the cost of a college education has risen dramatically, the wage difference between a college graduate and a high school graduate has grown even faster. In short, college is worth more now than it used to be and this difference in payoff exceeds the difference in cost.
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College Degree is the Only Route to a Middle Class (or better) Job and Life
Carnevale, Anthony, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl. Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018. Rep. Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, June 2010. Web. 3 Dec. 2011. <http://www9.georgetown.edu/grad/gppi/hpi/cew/pdfs/FullReport.pdf>. Postsecondary education has become the threshold requirement for a middle-class family income. (Pg. 3) In the 37-year time frame shown in Table I, the share of people with some college or Associates degrees in the middle class declined from 53 percent to 45 percent. But the key to understanding this phenomenon is discerning where those people are going when they leave the middle. For example, the share of people with Associates degrees in the top three income deciles increased from around 28 percent to 35 percent. Therefore, while it is true that the middle class is declining, a more accurate portrayal of the American class dynamic would be to say that the middle class is dispersing into two opposing streams of upwardly mobile college-haves and downwardly mobile college-have-nots. (Pg. 3) Dropouts, high school graduates, and people with some college but no degree are on the down escalator of social mobility, falling out of the middle-income class and into the lower three deciles of family income. In 1970, almost half (46 percent) of high school dropouts were in the middle class. By 2007, the share of dropouts in the middle class had fallen to 33 percent.(Pg.3) In 1970, almost 60 percent of high school graduates were in the middle class. By 2007, the share had fallen to 45 percent. (Pg. 4) Over that same period, people with college degrees (Bachelors and graduate degrees) have either stayed in the middle class or boarded the escalator upwards to the highest three family income deciles. (Pg. 4) The share of people with Bachelors degrees in the middle class declined from 47 percent to 38 percent, decreasing by 9 percentage points. But the share of people with a Bachelors degree in the top three income deciles jumped from 37 percent to 48 percent. Meanwhile, the share of people with graduate degrees in the middle class declined from 46 to 30 percenta decrease of 16 percentage points. But, clearly, they were leaving for greener pastures, as the share of people with graduate degrees in the top three income deciles increased from 41 to 61 percent. (Pg. 4)
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At the societal level, the non-economic benefits that accrue include lower rates of incarceration; higher rates of volunteerism; and higher voter participation rate
The employment rates cited earlier can also be considered economic benefits for local and national economies. The tax revenues generated from high-income people are a public economic benefit; and the lower levels of social program spending reflect economic benefits for the public as well. (Pg. 15)
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Non-white college graduates paid $6,200 in taxes, and white, non-Hispanic women paid $8,100. Thus, the total government savings for a college graduate as compared to a high school dropout was in excess of $10,000. With disposable income added in, total net return was around $20,000. (Pg. 17)
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Brooks, David. "The Wrong Inequality." The New York Times. 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
Over the past several decades, the economic benefits of education have steadily risen. In 1979, the average college graduate made 38 percent more than the average high school graduate, according to the Fed chairman, Ben Bernanke. Now the average college graduate makes more than 75 percent more. Moreover, college graduates have become good at passing down advantages to their children. If you are born with parents who are college graduates, your odds of getting through college are excellent. If you are born to high school grads, your odds are terrible. In fact, the income differentials understate the chasm between college and high school grads. In the 1970s, high school and college grads had very similar family structures. Today, college grads are much more likely to get married, they are much less likely to get divorced and they are much, much less likely to have a child out of wedlock. Today, college grads are much less likely to smoke than high school grads, they are less likely to be obese, they are more likely to be active in their communities, they have much more social trust, they speak many more words to their children at home. Some research suggests that college grads have much bigger friendship networks than high school grads. The social divide is even starker than the income divide. (1) "Are Too Many Students Going to College?" The Chronicle of Higher Education. 8 Nov. 2009. Web. 04 Dec. 2011. <http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Too-Many-Students-Going/49039/>. [College education] is of critical importance to [our society and our economy]. In the emerging global economy, our greatest competitive vulnerability is our nation's failure to close the higher-education credentials gap between middle-income and lower-income families. Increasing college-attendance rates in the United States is essential to reducing income inequality and maintaining our stature as a world economic leader. Our economic dominance in the second half of the 20th century was directly related to our educational dominance. The United States was the first nation to provide basic education to all people regardless of their income. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the educated American worker was far more productive than his illiterate overseas cousin. That advantage made our nation rich. However, while other nations eventually caught on and caught up, American educational outcomes have stagnated since the late 1970s. We have lost our educational advantage.
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Klor De Alva, Jorge, and Mark Scheider. Who Wins? Who Pays? The Economic Returns and Costs of a Bachelors Degree. Rep. American Institutes for Research, May 2011. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.air.org/files/WhoWins_bookmarked_050411.pdf>. Taxpayers benefit from the higher state and federal income taxes paid on the higher salaries earned by college graduates, varying from $60,000 in additional taxes paid over the work life of a graduate from a less selective public institution to almost $150,000 in additional income taxes paid over the work life of a graduate from the most selective not-for-profit colleges or universities. (Pg. 1) As shown in the following evidence, the above tax receipts exceed the investment made by taxpayers in nearly every case. Taxpayers subsidize bachelors degrees in nearly all not-for-profit institutions at around $8,000 per degree. In public institutions, the taxpayer investment is more than $60,000. (Pg. 1) Taxpayer subsidies increase dramatically among the most selective institutions, from almost $60,000 in the most selective not-for-profit institutions to well over $100,000 in the most selective public institutions. (Pg. 1) Clearly, taxpayers derive substantial benefits from the higher wages bachelors graduates earn in comparison to high school graduates. And although the tax benefits that flow from graduates in the most selective colleges are greater than from less selective ones, the numbers of graduates from these highly and most selective institutions is small relative to the number of graduates from other schools. Therefore, from the taxpayer perspective, the payoffs from the graduates of the schools producing the most graduates, regardless of their status as public, notfor-profit, or for-profit institutions, are substantial. (Pg. 10) In most cases, taxpayers more than share in the added income that graduates earn, making a profit even after netting out the subsidies they put into Americas colleges and universities. (Pg. 14) Taxpayers derive significant benefits from the higher wages college graduates earn relative to high school graduates. During the first decade following graduation, when most graduates are still in the early stages of their career, the net return to taxpayers is between $17,000 and $30,000 per graduate from schools in most levels of selectivity. The largest taxpayer gain comes from graduates of not-for-profit schools in the most competitive category, where graduates pay on average more than $37,000 in additional taxes. (Pg. 17) The returns to taxpayers via additional tax receipts across the lifetime of bachelors graduates range from $52,000 at non/less competitive not-for-profit schools to nearly $150,000 at the most competitive not-for profit institutions. Except in the case of graduates from the most competitive not-for-profit institutions, graduates from public institutions, on average, provide a greater return to taxpayers via their income taxes. (Pg. 17)
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Williams, Adriane, and Watson Swail. Is More Better: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society. Rep. Educational Policy Institute, May 2005. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.educationalpolicy.org/pdf/gates.pdf>.
Please see Educational Policy Institute in the Organization Index for more information. A professional who earns, on median, $95,699 (2003), pay an estimated $26,235 in taxes, including income tax, FICA, and state and local taxes. Conversely, a high school graduate who earns, on median, $30,755 pays $6,695, or less than one quarter the total amount of the professional. Put another way, it takes four high school graduates to pay the equivalent in taxation as one professional. A BA recipient earns approximately $50,000 and pays $11,940 in taxes. (Pg. 15)
Up to this point, this brief has focused on how attending college is a sound decision for an individual as the benefits outweigh the costs in their life. However, it is equally true (if not more so) that society benefits from having its members attend college and go through life as a more educated, typically higher earning individual. As discussed in following sections, the benefits are diverse and numerous, ranging from lower incarceration rates to less use of welfare. However, the evidence provided in this section is particularly compelling as going to college tends to result in dramatically higher tax revenues for the state. At a time when states all around the country are teetering on the verge of bankruptcy or significant budget cuts, such a boost would we well received. Indeed, college is one of the best investments that societies can make in their citizens.
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Williams, Adriane, and Watson Swail. Is More Better: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society. Rep. Educational Policy Institute, May 2005. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.educationalpolicy.org/pdf/gates.pdf>.
Please see Educational Policy Institute in the Organization Index for more information. Medicaid: Increases in education reduced the reliance on Medicaid. For women, regardless of race/ethnicity or naturalization status, receipt of a high school diploma reduced annual Medicaid spending by an average of $400. Medicare spending for a college graduate as compared to a high school dropout was reduced by approximately $550 and $850 dollars, depending on the group. The reduction also was apparent for men, but at a ratio of about 1:3 of that of women.
Williams, Adriane, and Watson Swail. Is More Better: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society. Rep. Educational Policy Institute, May 2005. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.educationalpolicy.org/pdf/gates.pdf>.
Please see Educational Policy Institute in the Organization Index for more information. In every income level and age group, people with bachelors degrees report that they are healthier. The choice to disaggregate by income level helps to dispel what could be a concern that earning more puts one in a better position to take care of ones health. The study shows that even those with bachelors degrees earning very little, less than $20,000 a year, report themselves healthier than do those with some college. (Pg. 24)
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Williams, Adriane, and Watson Swail. Is More Better: The Impact of Postsecondary Education on the Economic and Social Well-Being of American Society. Rep. Educational Policy Institute, May 2005. Web. 4 Dec. 2011. <http://www.educationalpolicy.org/pdf/gates.pdf>.
Please see Educational Policy Institute in the Organization Index for more information. Welfare: The cost of welfare per person drops significantly with increased educational attainment. For instance, the average annual welfare cost for a white, non-Hispanic female high school dropout of age 30 was estimated at $623 annually, compared to two-thirds that amount for a high school graduate and almost zero for a college graduate. Over 32 years, the discounted savings for a white, non-Hispanic female high school graduate compared to a high school dropout would total $7,545 in 1997 dollars. However, it should be noted that the greatest impact on welfare reduction is between a high school dropout and a high school graduate. Higher levels of education further reduce the welfare burden, but the greatest percentage reductions occur between the two lower levels cited.
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These estimated losses are for one year and for one class of students. Because the losses for these students accumulate year after year, these estimates understate the overall costs of low college graduation rates. Further, this report focuses on only one cohort of students; however, losses of this magnitude are incurred by each and every college class. In short, there are high costs for low graduation rates borne by individual students, by their families, and by taxpayers in each state and the nation as a whole. (Pg. 1) In 14 states, the income losses from this cohort of students exceed $100 million annuallyranging from California, with close to $390 million in lost income, and New York, with close to $360 million, and decreasing to Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and New Jersey, all between $101 million and $107 million in lost income.
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These losses are paralleled by federal income tax losses ranging from more than $50 million per year in California, New York, and Texas to approximately $15 million in Massachusetts, North Carolina, and New Jersey. Remember that this is just one cohort and just one years loss. (Pg. 5) If we look at the cumulative losses over the work life of this cohort, the numbers are staggering. In California, college dropouts are losing nearly $15 billion in earnings over their work lives, costing the federal government more than $3 billion in lost income taxes. College dropouts from New York and Texas are losing more than $13 billion in earnings over their lifetime and more than $2 .5 billion in federal taxes. Dropouts in other states, including Illinois and Florida, are losing more than $5 billion in lifetime earnings and more than $1 billion in federal taxes. These are high losses for both the college dropout and for taxpayers. (Pg. 6) Of more immediate interest to governors and state legislators will be our estimates of lost state income tax receipts. The amount lost is a function not only of the forgone income but also of state income tax rates. There are ten states that lost more than $5 million from this one cohort in 2010 state tax receipts. These losses range from large states with high taxes, such as California and New York, where the annual loss of state income taxes comes to more than $20 million; through Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, with annual losses from this cohort at approximately $7 million; through the remaining top ten losersMichigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, and Illinoisat approximately$5 million. (Pg. 6)
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When we look at the cumulative losses to state treasuries over the work lives of these dropouts, the losses range from more than $1 billion in state income taxes in California, to $934 million in New York, and more than $200 million in each of the remaining eight states listed in the table. Again, these numbers are for a single cohort of studentsand every year, tens of thousands of students drop out of college, creating a never-ending cumulative loss for all of us. (Pg. 6) In short, not only are states spending large amounts of money educating students who drop out, but these dropouts also are costing states millions of dollars in lost tax revenues. (Pg. 7)
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Voting: Voting is the civic benefit that IHEP (1998), the College Board (Baum and Payea 2004), Dee (2004), and Putnam (1995) point to as crucially important. Voting increases steadily with additional years of education, through the bachelors degree. (Pg. 27)
One of the foundations upon which our democracy is build is an educated citizenry. As the evidence in this section suggests, not only is it the case that educated people tend to make better political decisions, they also engage in the civic proves more whether that is through voting or volunteering. Both of these are crucial to the well-being of the American democracy and although they are intangible and difficult to quantify, should not be left out of your case. Regardless of the condition of the economy, the interest rate on student loans or job availability, an educated and involved citizenry is always a good thing and college does a great deal to support that.
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Pro Counters
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Pilon, Mary. "Earnings Gap Between College and High School Grads Small." The Wall Street Journal. 2 Feb. 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2011.
Mark Schneider, a vice president of the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, calls it "a million-dollar misunderstanding." One problem he sees with the estimates: They don't take into account deductions from income taxes or breaks in employment. Nor do they factor in debt, particularly student debt loads, which have ballooned for both public and private colleges in recent years. In addition, the income data used for the Census estimates is from 1999, when total expenses for tuition and fees at the average four-year private college were $15,518 per year. For the 2009-10 school year, that number has risen to $26,273, and it continues to increase at a rate higher than inflation. Dr. Schneider estimated the actual lifetime-earnings advantage for college graduates is a mere $279,893 in a report he wrote last year. He included tuition payments and discounted earning streams, putting them into present value. He also used actual salary data for graduates 10 years after they completed their degrees to measure incomes. Even among graduates of top-tier institutions, the earnings came in well below the milliondollar mark, he says. (1)
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January 2012 Pro Counters: College Earning Over-stated "Averages don't tell the whole story," says Lauren Asher, president of the Institute for College Access & Success, a nonprofit group based in Berkeley, Calif. She points out that incomes vary widely, especially based on majors. "The truth is that no one can predict for you exactly what you're going to earn," she says. And that includes the College Board, which recently said on its Web site: "Over a lifetime, the gap in earning potential between a high-school diploma and a bachelor of arts is more than $800,000. In other words, whatever sacrifices you and your child make for [a] college education in the short term are more than repaid in the long term." The $800,000 number, it turns out, was pulled from a footnote of the College Board's 2007 "Education Pays" report that explained lifetime earnings. The report's author, Sandy Bauman emeritus Skidmore College economics professor who didn't write the promotional text on the Web sitesays that $450,000 is actually a more reasonable estimate of the difference in lifetime earnings, something she's said in interviews for more than a year. (1) Steve Talbott, a journalism professor at Cleveland State University who is researching the cost of education and student-loan debt, says he urged the College Board to take down the "misleading use" of the $800,000 number a year ago. Others have voiced their objections to the College Board figure via letters and blogs. A College Board spokeswoman says it doesn't have a record of when the content was written and that "it's possible that during an update of the content the writer misinterpreted the data within the report." She also says the text represented old data and reflected "a different methodology." The $800,000 figure was removed from its Web site in December, once the group learned of the error, she says. (1)
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Con Counters
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An argument the Pro might present is that most students go into college unprepared and are likely to fail. However, this study finds that students who go into remedial college classes are more likely to succeed than if they had not tried at all, or if they had gone into traditional college classes right away. This shows that colleges have set up programs to help students succeed and limit the risks of college costs.
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Rampbell, Catherine. "Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling." The New York Times. 18 May 2011. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.
An analysis by The New York Times of Labor Department data about college graduates aged 25 to 34 found that the number of these workers employed in food service, restaurants and bars had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though the sample size was small. There were similar or bigger employment increases at gas stations and fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi and limousine services. This may be a waste of a college degree, but it also displaces the less-educated workers who would normally take these jobs. The less schooling you had, the more likely you were to get thrown out of the labor market altogether, said Mr. Sum, noting that unemployment rates for high school graduates and dropouts are always much higher than those for college graduates. There is complete displacement all the way down. (1)
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One significant flaw in the BLS method is that it categorizes occupations as either "college" or "non-college," a methodology that is both subjective and static. For one, it misses the shift toward increased postsecondary requirements within occupations that are not traditionally deemed "college jobs." Labor economists agree that there has been a consistent shift toward increased postsecondary requirements across a growing share of occupations that previously did not require two- or four-year college degrees. Examples in the white-collar world include increasing demand for college degrees among managers, health care workers, and a wide variety of office workers, from insurance agents to building inspectors. Examples in the blue- and pink-collar world include increasing degree requirements among production workers, health care technicians, and utility and transportation workers. There are, then, a number of serious flaws with the BLS education demand numbers, ranging from the designation of college and non-college occupations to their failure to reflect rising education requirements across virtually every occupational category. BLS numbers are widely used by social scientists to gauge education demand, and yet their accuracy receives little serious scrutiny. For instance, when we compare the BLS projections for 2006 and the actual count of people in the labor force with degrees during that year, we see that the Bureau undercounted the true number of postsecondary-educated workers by 17 million in 2006, or roughly 30 percent, and by 22 million, or 40 percent in 2008. The bottom line is that the BLS predictions didnt even come close to what actually happened in the economy. The only way to reconcile those projections with real life is to assert that the Bureau's projections reflect the number of college degrees employers actually require, not the actual numbers of college-educated workers they decide to hire. If this is the case, then employers not only hired millions of overqualified workers in 2006 and 2008, but paid wage premiums of more than 70 percent for the privilege -- a notion, as we said earlier, that requires a belief that business owners across the nation and economic markets as a whole have taken leave of their senses.
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Over-education is Exaggerated
Carnevale, Anthony. "College Is Still Worth It." Inside Higher Ed. 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Dec. 2011. <http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/01/14/carnevale_college_is_still_worth_it_for_americ ans>. These kinds of mismatches between degrees and low-skilled jobs -- a phenomenon sometimes called "overeducation" -- are relatively small in number and dont matter much in an economy of nearly 150 million jobs. In addition, most such workers won't stay in those positions long-term. They eventually move on to better-paying jobs. Over a 10-year period, each cashier job has 13 incumbents who permanently leave the occupation; among medical doctors, that replacement rate is only one. People rarely leave jobs that require a college education because they have the best earnings, benefits and working conditions. There are many more brain surgeons who used to be cashiers than there are cashiers who used to be brain surgeons. A brain surgeon never starts as a brain surgeon, but would have likely had all types of jobs before entering college and medical school. Most jobs people hold in high school are in retail, food services, and other low-skill, low-wage jobs, and future brain surgeons are no exception. In addition, low-skill, non-college positions tend to be greatly overrepresented in the official jobs data because so many of them are part-time. Although low-wage, low-skill jobs make up 20 percent of all jobs in a single year, they only make up 14 percent of the hours worked. Jobs that require a BA or better make up 30 percent of all jobs, but 75 percent of those are full-time, full-year jobs, compared with 64 percent of jobs that require a high school diploma or less.
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Korn, Melissa. "Party Ends at For-Profit Schools." The Wall Street Journal. 23 Aug. 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.
For-profit colleges are facing a tough test: getting new students to enroll. New-student enrollments have plungedin some cases by more than 45%in recent months, reflecting two factors: Companies have pulled back on aggressive recruiting practices amid criticism over their high studentloan default rates. And many would-be students are questioning the potential pay-off for degrees that can cost considerably more than what's available at local community colleges. (1) Undergraduate new-student enrollment fell 25.6% at DeVry's namesake university in the quarter ended June 30. (1) At Corinthian, which implemented changes to its recruiter compensation in April, new-student enrollment declined 21.5% in the first calendar quarter, compared with an 8% decline in the previous quarter. (1)
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Contentions
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Pro Contentions
Pro Contentions
Contention One: The costs of a college education are growing, while the benefits are decreasing. In 2009, spending by Americans for post-secondary education totaled $461 billion, an amount 42% greater than in 2000, after accounting for inflation, and thats not including the previous two decades where costs rapidly rose as well. How are students paying for this cost? Well the College Board reports that college loans are near $1 trillion, which surpasses all credit card debt combined in this nation. Defaults on these loans are rising, and unlike a mortgage, they cannot be shed in bankruptcy so these loans will follow you for life. But, why cant students pay back their loans? As CNN reports, adjusting for inflation, college-level earnings have actually declined $400 since 1988. This is a major blow to proponents of a college education who often tout increased earnings over high school graduates. Yet, the real reason for going to college is supposed to be knowledge, and here colleges fail too. A study published in 2011 followed thousands of students in tens of different universities and found that in their first two years of college, a whole 45% of students showed no statistically significant gains in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills. After four years, that number was still 36%, over one third of all students. This has a real impact on jobs that graduates hope to find. Unprepared and illeducated, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that 17 million people with college degrees are working in jobs that do not require one. These people would have been better off going straight into the workforce and gaining valuable experience and wages.
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Pro Contentions Contention Two: There are better alternatives for many young Americans
Surprisingly, the cost of a college education has become so high, that a family would be better off investing in broad stock market investments. The Wall Street Journal reports that at the markets average annual return over the past 40 years, the funds needed for a college education could instead be invested over 40 years for a return of $3 million. Investor and president of Formula Capital James Altucher found the value of an invested sum equivalent to the cost of education to end up at $2.8 million over 50 years with a more conservative rate of return at 5%. Given that most experts calculate the extra earnings from a college degree to be between 270,00 and 800,000 dollars you can see that a college education costs far too much for its return. But in addition to this, we believe there are better working alternatives to a college education. Certification and training programs for jobs like electrician, plumber, or dental hygienist are effective and a study by Georgetown University found that 27% of jobs in these types of industries earn more than employees with a Bachelors degree with minimal cost. Additionally, the Presidents Council of Economic Advisers released a report that found growth among these types of jobs will be faster than jobs requiring a Bachelors degree. Too many people are pushed into the college track without clear purposethey take on debt only to drop out. Instead, we should encourage much of the college population to consider cost-effective alternatives. Contention Three: The Current System of College Education Harms the Nations Economy We also need to look at this resolution holistically. Because the nation and states invest in public education, we are paying for college students to attend schools. One problem with this is that our K-12 education system has created a society that over values college education. Our society pushed so many students into college and many are not prepared. Studies by state education boards and organizations like the ACT find that students are not up to college standards. Forty percent of students in Texas must take remedial classes when they get to college classes that cover high school materialand this number goes up to nearly 75% in states like Oregon and Connecticut. Remedial education in public universities costs the federal government between $2.31 and $2.89 billion annually; this does not include substantial state costs. These students are 10 times more likely to drop out of college anyway, leaving taxpayers with the bill. We must restructure education to avoid this problem but as it stands right now, these costs outweigh the benefits. Moreover, Professor Richard Vedder finds a statistically significant negative relationship between state spending on secondary education and economic growth. This means that as spending goes up, growth goes down. It might be possible to one day restructure education so that students come prepared to college, costs are limited, and job prospects are plentiful. However, that is not the reality we are dealing with today.
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Con Contentions
Con Contentions
Contention One: Benefits to Society Outweigh Costs To simply look at this resolution from the perspective of the individual is to overlook the significant benefits that accrue to society when an individual graduates from college. Indeed, a college decree is linked to everything from lower welfare usage to higher civic engagement and, perhaps most importantly, greater tax payments. Indeed, a report by Columbia University economist Henry Levin found that over their lifetime, male college graduates will contribute an extra $503,000$674,000 in taxes. Similarly, female college graduates contribute $348,000$407,000 extra. Aggregated, this means that people failing to graduate college has led to $566 million in lost federal income taxes; and$164 million in lost state income taxes. Not only are these tax receipts substantial but the benefit to the state is actually even larger as healthcare costs are lower for graduates (by up to 20K per person according to Levin) and their usage of social welfare is nearly nonexistent. Clearly, from a monetary standpoint, attending college is massively beneficial to the state. By the time you factor in intangible such as civic engagement and productivity increases, there is simply no way that the costs outweigh. Contention Two: College is a Sound Financial Investment Individually When college is viewed as a lifelong investment, the benefits clearly outweigh the costs. Numerous studies including one by Georgetown economy Anthony Carnevale have found that attending college can lead to a lifetime earnings increase of approximately one million dollars. Given the fact that even the most selective and prestigious schools in the country do not exceed 60K in annual tuition costs, it is hard to see how, over someones life, college is not a sound financial decision. Indeed, Michael Greenstone of the Brookings Institution finds that when you add up the various costs of college, the total investment for a four-year college degree is about $102,000. This cost is often made up for by the time the person is in their 30s leaving them with a life of increased prosperity and satisfaction.
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January 2012 Contention Three: College is Only Route to Middle Class or Better
Con Contentions
Thanks to the global recession, a weak job market and rising inequality in America, there are fewer and fewer quality jobs out there. Unsurprisingly, these good jobs are almost always awarded to college-educated people. This is reflected both in the differing unemployment rates (9.2 percent for fresh college graduates versus an astonishing 35 percent for fresh high school graduates) and in the fact that most jobs require additional trainingmuch of which can only be completed by people who have the skills college endows people with. Indeed, college graduates are almost twice as likely as high school graduates to receive formal training from their employers. Access to that training is important because it directly affects an employees earning power. Training can increase employee wages by 3 to 11 percent. When these factors combine with a recession that has hit blue-collar jobs particularly hard (20% of job loss has come in sectors such as construction) the picture for non-college graduates is particularly grim. This leads Anthony Carnevale to conclude that failing to hold a college degree makes it more likely that one will not be in the middle class. This trend has only gotten worse over time. As he notes, in 1970, almost 60 percent of high school graduates were in the middle class. By 2007, the share had fallen to 45 percent. On the other hand, people with college degrees now dominate the top three income deciles with people who hold graduate degrees accounting for over 60 percenta number that does not even include your typical college graduates. Indeed, the rich in America are almost exclusively college graduatesfailing to get a college degree removes the prospect of a high quality of life for all but a lucky few who manage to sneak into the middle class.
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