Making an Argument Should Everyone Go To College?

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Making an Argument
In the article “Should Everyone Go To College?” Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill argue that not every college degree is important. According to the authors, holding the belief that college degree is a must for everyone is misplaced. Rather, a lot of factors should be taken into account such as the 6-year graduation rate which determines the likelihood of graduating, return on investment of college degree, and average life-time earnings. However, I find the central argument that high school diploma is better than some college degrees wrong. In this essay, I am going to provide reasons why this argument is misplaced.
The authors did well to measure the value of education in terms of rate of return and establish to a large extent that college degrees offer higher rate of return compared to high school diploma for most courses. For other degrees, such as those in education and services, a high school diploma holder can earn higher. However, the central question is: should we discredit college degrees based on the pay gap? One thing the authors fail to take into account is passion and capability. Arguing that it is a wrong investment to take several years in college and come back to teach is a wrong investment is out of touch with reality.
In page 4, the authors note that “the lifetime earnings of an education or arts major working in the service sector are actually lower than the average lifetime earnings of a high school graduate.” While the statement can be true, it is not enough reason to downplay the importance of college degree. The authors seem to argue that before making a decision to go to college, one should look at the best paying jobs so that they can ...