One of the great things about working in CASL are the very many incredibly dedicated and talented faculty members that I have the privilege of calling my colleagues. I recently announced an open invitation to my faculty colleagues to contribute a guest blog post highlighting their experience in CASL, strategic planning, or sharing their thoughts about the value of the humanities and liberal arts. The following represents the first of what I hope will be many such posts. Enjoy!
Is A College Education Worth its Cost Anymore? (Jorge González del Pozo, Associate Professor of Spanish)
There is no doubt that the cost of higher education is significant and it is well known that those costs will continue to rise. Increasingly, many are questioning the value of a degree and whether it is even worth the effort to try to finance one.
When layered onto the widening economic gap in the United States between haves and have nots the question is all the more prescient. As the 2014 documentary The Ivory Tower reveals, the declining accessibility of a college education renders this milestone an increasingly unattainable one for many. Moreover, this growing gulf between those who can afford college and those who cannot captures in a striking manner the gap between those who have a shot to succeed and those who do not. The documentary filmed by Andrew Rossi is worth watching, and provides much food for thought. Is the cost/investment of a college degree worth the amount of debt that the nation’s underprivileged students will need to amass to finance their educations? Does the benefit of the degree outweigh its cost?
These are not easy questions to answer nor do the many points of view offered up necessarily put us at ease. Nevertheless, these questions are vital and they are questions that inspire the faculty in the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters (who all share the belief that a college education is the wisest investment that anyone can make) to keep looking for solutions to both the issue of affordability as well as to how to make the value of the degrees we offer even more useful for our students. Experiential learning courses, internships, co-ops, study abroad experiences, or jobs related to specific fields of study are all educational practices that add to the value of the learning process and tend to balance the costs associated with paying for a college degree.
A college education, particularly one grounded in the humanities, arts and letters, offers students a broad outlook on the world and a wide array of disciplinary perspectives and tools to apply to any problem they encounter, thus easing their transition into the world outside of the university. That we do it at a reasonable cost is all the more noteworthy. Learning for life and being able to live one’s life fully should be the top priority for all students. University faculty represent the body that is instrumental in the facilitation of this path for students. Let´s not forget who we serve and why we are here: to share knowledge, to improve and advance lives, and for the students.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3263520/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLdU7uts4ws
