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Caroline Bird College Is A Waste Of Time And Money Summary

1356 Words6 Pages

As a college student who is currently spending thousands of dollars to further my education and achieve a career goal, it was, at first, disheartening to read Caroline Bird’s essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money”. However, after thoroughly examining her points, I now see that her essay is illogical. In her piece “College is a Waste of Time and Money”, Caroline Bird argues against the idea that “college is the best place for all high-school graduates” (1); in other words, college isn’t for everyone. Throughout her writing, Bird supplies her readers with evidence that explains how, for some individuals, college is a waste of not only time and money, but of intellectual effort, as well. It wasn’t until after reading this piece several times that I began encountering flaws within her reasoning. Although I agree with Bird that college is a waste of all these for some students, I also believe that Bird does not provide strong enough evidence to persuade her readers into thinking this. First off, when choosing the material to include in her essay, Bird should have used evidence that contained more certainty in order to solidify her claim. For example, “it is difficult to assess how many students are in college reluctantly. The conservative Carnegie Commission estimates …show more content…

Granted, she may not have had access to the proper resources and information in 1975 compared to the numerous recent studies that exist today. Nevertheless, the evidence she used in “College is a Waste of Time and Money” did not adequately persuade her readers in the right direction. In fact, she began influencing me to believe the opposite due to her unsupported notions, questionable word choice, and inconclusive data. Overall, I do not believe that Bird’s evidence was strong enough to convince her audience that college is a waste of anything at

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