Yingting Song

Professor Howard
ENGL 101A
April 25,2016
Commentary Essay
College Is a Secret Weapon for The Progress of Society
In the very early years when United States of America was built, the leaders had already
realized that democracy and citizenship are inseparable from the education, as well as the social
mobility and the national prosperity. People who have higher education experience will have
more visionary cogitation and more life opportunities. But nowadays, people begin to question
the value of college by focusing on the college students income after the graduation. As the
Governor of California Ronald Reagan claimed in 1967, There are certain intellectual luxuries
that perhaps we could do without. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing intellectual curiosity
(Berrett). However, in my opinion, we shouldnt consider the value of college as a commodity,
because this way will harm the quality of higher education. We need to focus the values of
college more on students self-development and the progress of our society.
On the one hand, college is valuable for broadening our mind and vision to explore the world.
Although college is the place where we can explore the profound knowledge and do research,
most of time we find that we will forget most of the knowledge we learned in college. Even if we
still remember the knowledge, sometimes its useless in the job field. So the significant value of
the college is neither the diploma nor the knowledge you learned in college, but the process of
the thinking and learning, the attitude of researching and exploring we can use for the rest of our
lives. According to the President of Amherst College Carolyn Martin, College is for learning

how to think clearly, write beautifully, and put quantitative skills to use in the work of discovery
(Martin). Indeed, there are many cultural and humanities classes in the college, which not only
teach students to use peaceful eyes to respect different social ideologies, different cultures,
different values and different religions, such as the Muslim group and Lesbian-Gay-BisexualTransgendered group, but also help students to learn how to work with people in different
backgrounds, since America has the most diverse work environment in the world. Therefore,
after having the knowledge of various kinds of culture, students will be more capable of being
more open-minded and adapt to this diverse society easily.
On the other hand, college is valuable in social responsibility. This sense of the commitment
and the sense of urgency of building a fair and free society is one of the most important goals of
the college education. In other words, we can have the higher level of moral responsibility if we
can improve our self-development and our social responsibility. College students get higher
education. They may become the leadership of our country some day, thus they need to have the
responsibility to speak or fight for the needs for their group. To enhance this skill for college
students, most colleges are providing different kinds of leadership programs for students. With
these opportunities, no matter what kinds of positions students have in these programs, they can
not only improve their leadership skills and teamwork skills, but also be more responsible to
speak and fight for their group needs. It is really good practice for students before they enter the
working society.
College is also valuable for cultivating our personalities and pursuing our desires and ideas.
After graduating from high schools, we may be confused about our future. We dont know what
we want to do in the rest of our lives. But college provides plenty of opportunities to help
students to plan for our futures. For instance, there are many different kinds of majors in college.

Students can keep trying different programs to find the right one. College is also the most openminded place in our society. Different people can argue or persuade for different opinions in the
classrooms. This diversity helps college to become a pure land in our society, which can benefit
students to let them build their own independent personalities and ideas.
Since the college can enrich our lives and inspire enthusiasm, why still do many people think
that college is worthless? As the research shows that Only 26 percent of those alumni strongly
agreed that their postsecondary education was worth the cost. And 13 percent strongly disagreed
that it was worth it, a proportion that was notably higher than the national average of 4
percent(Blumenstyk). Because of the unclear purpose of attending college, people started to
compare the value of college with their income after graduation. When the income is not equal to
their tuition, people started to think its worthless. Actually, our colleges play a more and more
common and instrumental role, and evolved into an important "industry": just about knowledge,
and issuing diplomas, rather than facilitating students intelligence and building students souls.
Students may get some gifts in the academic field, but their overall education experience is not
complete. People who get educated in this process will often have short-sighted vision, unable to
accommodate different views, also will fail to have the capability of compassion or have the
sense of responsibility to be a good citizen. Therefore, I strongly agree with Brandon Busteed,
Gallups executive director for education and work-force development. "If we dont figure out
how to improve that value proposition, the great tidal wave of demand for higher education in
the U.S. could easily come crashing down on us (Blumenstyk).
Additionally, college is valuable for teaching students to think deeply and slowly, as we all
know that speed is very important for the worlds economy. When were trying to speed up
everything, we will forget to think. It means when our brain tries to catch up to the machine,

well give up thinking for the effectiveness. But college can teach students to slow down and
have the ability for critical thinking. In the social way, our world needs college graduates as the
new generation to challenge the old generation who are still the leaders of our society. The
collision between two ideologies will bring the progress of the society. Knowledge has never
been exhausted by spreading it to more and more people (Strauss). In a personal way, the slow
and deep thinking will also help us to explore our professional field and spread our ideas as well
as knowledge to everyone.
All in all, college may not be a golden ticket for seeking a job, but college can help students to
update their learning process. College can not only provide the opportunity to help students
search themselves in different angles, but also can give students the space to explore themselves.
By helping students to broaden their minds and visions, college can help the young generation to
challenge the old authority. These values are both good for self-development of college students
and the progress of our society.

Works Cited
Berrett, Dan. The Day the Purpose of College Changed. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The Chronicle of Higher Education. 26 January 2015. Web. 25 April 2016.
Blumenstyk, Goldie. "Just Half of Graduates Strongly Agree Their College Education Was Worth
the Cost."

The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 29

September 2015.Web. 5 May 2016.

Martin, Carolyn. What Is College for? The Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle of
Higher Education. 22 April 2013. Web. 25 April 2016.
Strauss, Valerie. Why we are looking at the value of college all wrong. The Washington Post.
The Washington Post. 1 November 2014. Web. 25 April 2016.