Summary Of William Zinsser College Pressures

While the ever increasing pressures and cost of a college education seem to be a recent event, they problems have persisted for many decades. In 1979, William Zinsser wrote “College Pressures” in order to portray the daily struggles of college students and argue how students see college differently in the modern era. Zinsser stresses how college has changed from being an institute purely focused on higher learning to one of almost strictly vocational purposes. He argues that modern students equate college degrees more with higher paying jobs than as a symbol of knowledge in a specific field, and that these pressures to succeed greatly impact the student’s health. Through my own college experiences, I can certainly verify that college is more

With large pool of recent graduates to pull from, employers are raising the requirements of entry level jobs to include Bachelor's and Master’s degrees to thin out the crowd. In response, students are increasing their efforts to get more fitting degrees in order to impress their potential employers and increase their chances of getting hired in their desired field. As Zinsser states, “College should be open-ended: at the end it should open many, many roads. Instead, students are choosing their goal in advance, and their choice narrow as they go along” (402). Zinsser’s observations of the current college system show that college is great for businesses, but poor for students. By increasing their requirements and specifying certain degrees, businesses can hire employees that are more knowledgeable or adapt at their job and will require less training. Students, however, receive the short end of the stick. Should a student not like the field that they find themselves in, or wish to switch to a different employer, will find that they may be unable to do so, as their current degree does not meet the requirements of the field they wish to switch to, or they will find that they will have to return to school in order to continue their

One of these surveys, summarized by Alexander Astin in “What Matters in College?”, surveyed over 200 four year colleges from the years 1985 to 1989 with a grand total of over 25,000 student participants. Through standardized testing and surveys came to the conclusion that colleges put a tremendous amount of emphasis on graduate school courses and research, and completely shortchange undergraduate education. Astin continues to state that through his findings, he found that the content of undergraduate classes made little difference to the effectiveness of the student’s education, instead what made the greatest difference was the method. Through his research, he believes that the current education system puts so much value on post-grad education and credibility, that the actual focus on student learning has been lost. Astin states that, “Our educational policies seemed to be based more on economic than on educational considerations”. He calls for reform to the entire curricular system, mentioning how cooperative learning is far more effective if the focus is on delivery and method, instead of formal structure and content. He concludes the current formal content-based system is a result of the devaluing of education in favor of degrees, and that the university’s method