12B) INQ Question - Higher Education Is Important

1)    In the article “What is college for” by Gary Gutting he states “our support of higher education only makes sense if we regard this intellectual culture as essential to our society”. Do you believe that this statement is important, why or why not? Does this apply to you as an individual?  

In the article “What is college for,” the author uses a very persuasive tone in this article. He does value that college is important to our society however according to the statistics shown about college graduates it does vary from person to person. Overall for the statistics shown 86% of graduates from a four year university think that college has been a good investment. Something that stood out to me was when he explained that “students only spend as much time as they need to get what they see as an “acceptable grade”. I absolutely feel that the author is right. In college everything changes so quickly, that many people just try to get by even when they may not understand something completely. The purpose of what Gary Gutting is clarifying to his readers is that we should enroll in college with the intentions of achieving success in our studies by knowing what we are doing. The whole purpose of college is that you can graduate and find a job that will support you and a possible family. We should take a lot out of every course that we are placed in even if we don’t think it will benefit us in the future. He understands that many colleges are very expensive, so to support your investment by going to college you should make decisions that will help you grow intellectually. We should not only strive to pass each of our courses but actually apply what you have learned in other areas of your college career, daily lives, or work environment. In addition to this idea, I feel that this statement is important to me because I do believe going to college is essential in today’s society. As stated in the “Liberal Arts and the Workplace,” “The rush for degrees has surely has been”…it is apparent that many people strive for a degree as much as you may.