English102I
Xiaoxi (Cissy) Gao
2/11/2015
Argumentative Opinion Essay
College is a Good Place for Students to Go

There are a number of people thought that college is a waste of time and money, but it is actually common senses that students should go to college for higher education after they finish high school. It is not only because college diplomas can bring students better jobs and more salaries, this four-year period can also give students time to explore themselves and practice their interpersonal skills. All of the reasons show that college is not a waste of time and money but a place that worth parent to put investment in for students because they can have better futures after they graduate from college.
However, there are still people out there think that college is not a good place for high school graduate students to go. In the article “College is a waste of time and money” by Caroline Bird, the author claimed that college does not make people intelligent and happy, and students can even learn more or make more friends if they find a job instead of going to college. He thinks that college diploma is no longer a vocational door to get a good career because more and more people are going to college for that diploma. But those are just part of the opinions when people look at college, most people still see more benefits than disadvantages of going to college.
Nowadays, most good jobs need people who has more than a high school diploma. That is why there are more and more college graduates now than the past. There are too many competitions in the society so people need higher education level to get a greater job. According to the data from Lorain County Community College, college graduates can get better jobs and earn more money than high school graduates. The average lifetime earnings of people with associate’s degrees are one million dollars higher than people with high school graduate diplomas. It also shows that average lifetime earning of people with professional degrees are 2.4 million dollars higher than people with associate’s degrees. These data show that every bit of education people get after high school increase the chances they will earn good pay. With good salaries, people can earn more money than they put into college as investments, and this is also when college is no longer a waste of money.
Some would say, “Now I understand that college is not a waste of money, but it is still a waste of time”. This is not totally wrong because some students may want to take a year off and go traveling in order to explore themselves. Some may go straight to work because they want to make money as earlier as they can. But facts show that students feel more comfortable if they go to college after high school instead of going to work. Most students are in adolescence during the four years of college, and it is the period that adolescents explore themselves. They can find out what majors they want to be in, what they want to do as their jobs in the future, and what kind of life they want after they graduate. In “Emerging Adulthood” by Jeffery Arnett, he said that emerging adulthood is the time when young people explore possibilities for their lives in a variety of areas, especially love and work. “During this interval of years, when they are neither beholden to their parents nor committed to a web of adult roles, they have an exceptional opportunity to try out different ways of living and different options for love and work”. When they try out different majors in college, they can learn more about their abilities and interest so they can choose their jobs properly in the future. If those emerging adults go to work immediately after they graduate from high school, they will not have time to explore what they love and what they want to work with, so college is the best place for them to explore themselves during this period of time.
There is one way that students can try to find out what they really want to do in the