College is a Waste of Time and Money The essay “College is a Waste of Time and Money” by Bird is an excerpt from the book The Case against College which was published in 1975. The author tells people that college is not an obligation in our life. Bird agues that college is a waste of time because the majority of college students go to college for social and economic reasons. Very few actually go to learn and have the desire to be there. And he think students were not happy at all. They felt like it was time in a jail cell. It is just a stage which is taken by a lot of teenagers who don’t even know what to do with their lives. This excerpt is clearly directed towards raising awareness among the high school graduates concerning college education, as well as the general public. I find it quite puzzling that the author of the excerpt has purposed to demonize higher education and yet she has a master’s and a bachelor’s degree from two separate universities, which points out to the importance of higher education. However, this is not true. College is a fundamental stage during someone’s life, in which we are taught the basic skills related to the field which we are interested in. Furthermore, we learn to be independent and to make new friends, who will be able to help us in the future.
Bird argues that higher education is a complete waste of time since the majority of the students attend college because of economic and social reasons. She further states that only a handful certainly have the desire to be in college and learn. Bird presents this statement with the evidence of Professors and Administrators estimations that no more than 25% of students are turned on by classwork. And the reason many students are there is because of the noble American idea of “getting an education.” Many youngsters are pushed into going to college. I think Bird effectively argues that college is a waste of time because many students attending college have no desire to be there for educational reasons. Many students have this idealistic view of college: fun, partying, meeting new people, and getting away from your parents. However, many forget that college is a place where your future is decided in terms of what kind of work you want to do. With this comes harsh hours of studying, and the expenses of college.
The main inspiration for Bird to write this excerpt stems from the fact that the contemporary settings has turned higher education into the novel high school diploma and from her own perspective, she firmly believes that it is the wrong thing to do. The main purpose for writing the excerpt is to convince high school students to have thorough considerations of what they are getting involved in before deciding to join a college. She states that there are other platforms other than just colleges to prepare students to face the “real world.” She gives statistics which suggests that, instead of paying school fees for students, the money would be put in better use if it was used in investment. She highlights a critical point of concern that college students graduate from colleges with diplomas that are irrelevant to them. This can be a disturbing reality to go through schooling and emerge with piling debts, and yet one is an insignificant part of the world.
I do not think that Bird gave enough support to her argument. For instance, she claims that an institution is, “an arrangement of everyone without questions, the burden of proof is not why you go, but why everyone thinks there might be a reason for not going,” (Bird 28). Therefore, a number of eighteen year olds are quite confused and too young to have an idea of what they genuinely want and listen to elderly advice on education. Here, in as much as she defines an institution, she does not give an explicit explanation as to why students should give an ear to their elders on what they know is best for them. Personally, it is my belief that youngsters do not blindly follow