Analysis Of Should Everyone Go To College Owen And Sawhill

The need for acquiring a college degree has always been a difficult decision for students. Oftentimes the thought of attending college is seen as a requirement to enter the higher class in the United States. It has become common to think that recipients of a college education will end up making more money than the people who do not receive post-secondary education. The choice of whether or not to attend college has been pondered in the minds of adolescents. The amount of money that people make weighs heavily on whether or not they attend college right after high school. The article titled “Should Everyone Go To College?” by Stephanie Owen and Isabel V. Sawhill, presents a well-organized, strong, effective argument over whether or not college

Owen and Sawhill include the claim of the article by acknowledging that, “[b]y telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice” which also answers the question presented in the title (par. 1). The authors side with the position that not everyone should be forced to attend college and for some people, it can be a disfavor to their future. Not only does the claim appropriately ties in with the title and main idea of the article, but it also effectively sets up the foundation for the organization in which the article is written because the article builds off of the claim by adding evidence and reason to their side of the argument presented. Owen and Sawhill, later on, develop aspects of the article to show evidence to emphasize the claim throughout the essay, such as “[t]he purpose of this brief is to highlight the reasons why, for a given individual, the benefits may not outweigh the costs” (par. 6). Overall, the claim presented is written that students who are interested in whether or not to go to college are not confused on what side of the argument the authors support and the constant repetition of the claim throughout the article assists to make the point come across very

When discussing the opportunity cost of college, evidence shows that “[u]sing average earnings for 18- and 19-year-olds and 20- and 21-year-olds with high school degrees (including those working part-time or not at all), Michael Greenstone and Adam Loony of Brookings’ Hamilton Project calculate an opportunity cost of $54,000 for a four-year degree” (par. 4). The statistics of opportunity cost of college displays an effective example of a strong type of supporting evidence since we are given the authors of the study, the project name, and also the statistics were presented clearly and effectively with the appropriate evidence for this article. The evidence also effectively tie in with the main idea of paragraph 4 where Owen and Sawhill were discussing other factors to consider when figuring out if the cost of college will negatively impact the student and be a disservice when choosing to attend college. Furthermore, when discussing the non-monetary benefits of schooling, “[r]esearch suggests that additional education improves overall well-being by affecting things like job satisfaction, health, marriage,... and social interaction” (par. 4). The details of non-monetary benefits presents an example of weak supporting evidence since the reader is not informed with various