John John
Professor Johnson
English 102
9 December 2014
Never mind the college fund
In the article by Jonnelle Marte of “Never mind the college fund”, she explains why David Fagan does not believe his eight kids should be attending college for higher education by using arguments such as: hasty generalization, straw man, and false dilemma. According to David Fagan, his kids should pay their way to higher education or must obtain a school scholarship if wanting to attend college. He rather expects his kids to learn the value of starting a business or find ways to fund their higher education on their own. David is a marketing executive and his path to success included hurdling thru challenges that made him believe that being hands on in his family’s background business and in the current environment, should be sufficient for his kids to follow that path to success. Get to know the real-life experiences, instead of wasting time in college is David’s mantra of life which he wants to pass along to his kids.
David uses hasty generalization when he talks about how his father did not believe in financing higher education for his children and uses his background as an example for raising his own children. David grew up in a family of five, and his parents insisted all their children to work for anything that they wanted. So he dropped out of school after 11th grade and started working so he could pay himself for everything he needed including few college classes (Marte, 2014). In David’s mind even at the younger age, his kids should be allowed to understand the concept of making themselves and the value of money because that is what he has been taught by his father when he was a kid. David’s use of hasty generalization means he does not have to research higher education for his kids and does not think if any benefits of higher education for his kids in the future. This shows a lack of research that David has done, and he solely relies on his father’s footsteps on the future of his own eight kids. David’s father may not have had enough funds to send his kids to get higher education, so David may have made the assumption that higher education does not guarantee success in the future. Teaching kids the value of real life experience may be the best life lesson; but contrary to what David believes, higher education does put a solid foundation on kid’s lives for the success of their future. According to David’s argument, he uses straw man when referencing his father’s belief that higher education is not necessary for success. Agreeing with his thought, kids should not be concentrating solely on higher education, rather get experience in the business environment and learn from their mistakes or striking out in real life situations. Usually when people graduate from high school they do not have specific goals that they want to follow. If asked a high school graduate "what do you want to be"? They may probably say, "I don't know!" If they get a full time job, get involved in real world, and find out how difficult it is to find a proper job without having a college degree, they may eventually change their mind to continue their education through college (Swanson, 1955, p. 176). David uses straw man as an easy way out of having to finance for a expensive higher education for his eight kids. He want to avoid using his retirement funds for his kid’s higher education expenses, so instead teaches them to be in a actual working environment, which he feels is a life lesson. According to Education Research (ERC), cost of college rises every year and parents wonder if the higher education is totally worth it for their kids. David’s arguments regarding how his kids have to earn themselves or trying to convince the point of why he should fund them to attend college is what his father has preached to him. A welled-plan scheme of financial plan should be created if kids are in family, to assist them to get a head start in higher education (Adam,