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Charles Murray Are Too Many People Going To College Summary

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Most schools in the United States promoted college or university as a student's only option upon graduating from high school. But is college really a necessary to be a literate individual who obtains a decent paying job? In the article "Are Too Many People Going to College?," author Charles Murray claims that in fact too many people are attending college today. Murray argues that college isn't necessary nor is it realistic for every person. Murray's claims that to be a literate American you should need nothing more than a basic kindergarten through twelfth-grade education. Additionally, Murray claims that money isn't the only important aspect to consider when deciding to go to college, but that "the topic is no longer money but job satisfaction" (Murray 248). Murray discusses how money …show more content…

Murry discusses the need for students to learn the core essentials of American culture, history, and language. These essentials should begin to be taught early on in a student's elementary education. Beginning to educate younger students as soon as kindergarten is an advantage because smaller children find learning more enjoyable than older students will. Murray argues that college shouldn't be necessary to be literate. A kindergarten through twelfth-grade education should be able to teach the students everything they need to be a literate American. College is great but education systems shouldn't wait until college to finish teaching the students what they need to be literate Americans within society. Murray creates a good argument for teaching the core essentials in K-12 curriculum. A high school diploma should set a person up to be a productive person in society nothing more, nothing less. College should be a choice but not something that everyone has to obtain to be successful. Granted different people define success

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People go to college to get a good paying job, have job security, and get a degree. Well at least that’s what it should be about. That’s what Charles Murray believes in his essay “Are Too Many People Going to College.” Murray counters the argument of Sanford Ungar who believes colleges should have a more liberal approach towards its classes and have students actually learn a broad range of real life skills instead of just going into a career just because it pays well. In Ungar’s essay he explains the misperception that Americans have on obtaining a liberal-arts degree and how they believe it doesn’t translate well to the real world.

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This summary is about Linda Lee’s essay “The Case against College”. Lee has several great points about life and how college isn’t for everybody. Lee feels strongly that not everyone needs to attend college and get a degree. Throughout the essay Lee is knowledgeable on the information and data she is mentioning. She does a great job at answering questions that came to mind when reading the essay.

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Too many people are receiving degrees while their ideal profession does not involve extraneous education. In the article, “Are Too Many People Going to College?”, Charles Murray uses the maxim of quality and conveys his opinion intending to persuade his vast audience, whom can be inferred as upcoming, or presently, college students along with their parents and educational administrators; such as teachers and guidance counselors. Through the use of a simply structured article with equally understandable syntax and diction, his hidden meaning could not be more obvious of an ideology, however, he is not infallible, he also violates the maxim of quality, assuming his audience knows more than they truly do and at times, flouts the maxim of manner

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In Should The Obama Generation Drop Out Charles Murray talks about the flaws found in the Obama education plan . He brings to the attention of the public the fact that many student in America graduate lacking the skills necessary for the proper college education. Murray goes on to argue that in today 's society students who graduate from High-school go on to technical college to pursue a vocational education in their field of study; whereas, older generations have pursued an all around education, enrolling in classes that were irrelevant to the career they were pursuing. Murray claims that if you test the vast majority of Americans (including himself) in the more rigorous subjects, they would most likely fail. Murray mentions that he does

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Savannah Blietz Ms.Fordyce English P.2 21 September 2015 Is College worth the struggle? In this society that students live in the only way that they think they know how to tell people’s intelligence is by going to college. By not going to college the students think that they have more of an opportunity to explore the world then other people in college,but some disagree with this opinion and some agree that the source of all opportunity is the person and not their educational level. The educational level for language, math, and science has the student’s country ranked at the bottom because the people in the United States don’t take college seriously, it affects us as a country.

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Although this has a point, colleges actually prepare people for jobs and more importantly, prepare them for life. While in college, students need strong counseling to know what their best options are to succeed in the future. In the article “Colleges prepare people for life” it says, “Lack of counseling is one reason that fewer than 10 percent of Americans from the lowest income quartile have earned a college degree by age 24, compared to 80 percent of those in the top quartile.” Furthermore, there is data showing that the fastest growing job categories require at least a college degree. College graduates are much more likely to be employed than those with only a high school diploma and earn drastically higher salaries.

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The general argument made by author Charles Murray in his article, “Are too many people go to college,” is that the college is not necessary for everyone. More specifically, the Murray argues that students who went to school should have learned the core knowledge they will learn in the college. He writes, “ K-8 are the right years to teach the core knowledge, and the effort should get off to a running start in elementary school” (236). In this passage, Murray is suggesting that start teaching the core knowledge in elementary school until high school is better than to spend money and more time to the college. It is not important to go to college.

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Not everyone is suited for college, some people have different interests and abilities. Murray describes the struggle of college classes, and introduces possible problems if you do not have an IQ above 100. He claims that a four year college teaches information on a level that exceeds the intellectual capacity of most people. He then continues on to explain that even if someone does not do well in college they

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But for most students, the places to provide those basics are elementary and middle school” to show that students learn most of their core knowledge in their Kindergarten through Twelfth grade years (223). Also, Murray firmly believes that “For a society of immigrants such as ours, the core knowledge is our shared identity that makes us Americans together rather than hyphenated Americans” so we should not treat people from different nationalities any less when learning our core knowledge (224). However, I agree with Murray with the fact that most of our knowledge is learned in the years before getting college education. The only difference is that I disagree with Murray because I believe that in order for people to get a career that they want, they will need this college experience to get prepared for the specific information that they will be required to know for their

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Is going to college worth it? Going to college is very important, as some people may argue that it isn 't, it is the highlight of your life and your future ahead of you. people who argue that college is worth it said that “college graduates have higher employment rates, bigger salaries, and more work benefits than high school graduates.” more and more jobs require college degrees, jobs requiring college degrees grew by 187,000. This is where the money comes in, college grads earned $30,000 more per year than a high school graduate, or about $500,000 more over a lifetime.

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College Isn’t for Everyone "By telling all young people that they should go to college no matter what, we are actually doing some of them a disservice" (Owen). This quote from “Brookings Paper: Is College a Good Investment” goes into detail about how college isn’t for everyone. By educators, parents, and authority figures telling graduating high school seniors that college is necessary, they are limiting the potential of that student’s true skills. College isn’t right for everyone and not everyone wants to go to college.

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“Is College the best option why or why not discusses the controversial issue of whether college is important or not. On one hand, while some argue that college is very important. Stephanie Owens and Isabel Sawhill writers of article “Should Everyone Go to College” asserts that we may be doing a disservice by telling all young people that college is the best option. Owens feels that college may be of service to some people, but not the best option for everyone.

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If a person’s parent or guardian drilled the idea of college into your head, or if they told you ‘do what you want’ or ‘I don 't care’, or ‘You’re not going’. While college is great, there are other means of education. The value of college is a low because there are people who do not qualify for a college education, and also because there are other ways of post-secondary education other than college. College is not valuable because many people will not make it into a 2 or 4-year college, much less graduate from one. To support this, in the article Why College Isn 't For Everyone, it says, “As a general rule, I would use graduates in the top quarter of their class at a high-quality high school should go on to a four-year degree program, while those in the bottom quarter of their classes at a high school with a mediocre educational reputation should not.”

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There is an ample amount of information that leads people to believe that college is a great choice. In Source F, it is shown that, “Adults who graduated from a four-year college believe that, on average, they are earning $20,000 more a year as a result of having gotten that degree. Adults who did not attend college believe that, on average they are earning $20,000 a year less as a result.” Also, provided in Source F, “...55% say it [college] was very useful in helping them prepare for a job or career.” While these statistics are true, the negatives still outweigh the positives.

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In Charles Murray’s essay “Are Too Many People Going to College,” he believes that the concept of college has changed over the years. According to him, a four-year college is no longer as necessary as it was when it was first created because most jobs requires more on job training. He also adds to his reasoning by mentioning that because of the advancement of internet, physical libraries and the physical proximity of student and teachers is less important. Because of the changes he noticed he believes that people should go to college but not for liberal education. He makes the claim that the basic core knowledge of liberal education should be learned in elementary and middle school and that only people with high academic abilities should be encouraged to go to college.

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