This article by professor X talks about the value of college and basically what he maintains in the article is that the increasing number of American students are going to college and students think that it is necessary to finish their degree in order to get opportunities in job markets. However, he explains with specific examples and statistics that we overly value colleges that cannot boost the economy and where students learn less.
I partly agree with the author. The situation between the US and Korea is almost same. There are several dreams for Korean parents to make happen during lifetime. No! wait a minute. It is more like obsession. One is to buy a house of their own and the other one is to get kids to go to college. Clearly Korean parents put too much value on college, despite the fact that not all the college kids can get a job nowadays. In fact, very few of them get a decent job and then another few of them get a job and then finally it may sound too negative but the majority of Korean students are still struggling in the job markets. However, even though all of these are true, given the situation and under the education system in Korea, students still need to go to college. Hopefully, the greater University they enter, the brighter future will be for them. The following three parts of this essay are why going to helpless university is still the best option for Korean powerless students.
Sadly for students, going to college is no longer optional, unless students were born with the sufficient amount of money that they can live on during their life time. Now, let’s see the economic situation first. It is all like a vicious cycle. Companies have been facing the global economic crisis and then, as a result of this, they are hiring fewer students who are much more competent and able to do more at the same time which is so-called ‘Multitasking”. Naturally, students severely put a great deal of makeup on them with many kinds of certificates and very high score in TOEIC, which I would consider the most impractical and meaningless English test in the world. However, what can we make ourselves look much more attractive to companies trying to hire students? Go to college! It is certainly overvalued in our society, and yet again sadly the best way to be successful.
‘Perception’ more specifically ‘ Biased, prejudiced perception’ is like hideous nightmare for Korean adolescents. Basically entering university has become their ultimate goal for life. High school students are very much stressed about the fact that on every national holiday when relatives are all gathered, students are always told and questioned that you have to enter at least Korea University or just go work in a factory. Some students often fail to enter a desired college and then try to enter again in the following year. Please ask them about how they felt during the time they were spending for studying and people looked at them. Surely 95 of 100 students would say that they felt like they became a loser and people looked at them differently and very sorry for their parents who might have had high expectations on them. This is what causes students to go to college.
Another very scary reason why students must graduate from college, even though they know they earn nothing but a graduation certificate from a college, is to have a high hope that they might be paid more. Taking about a graduation certificate, there really is a big salary gap between haves and have-nots. Last year, a very interesting news was aired on MBC saying that after two years people start working at a company, college graduates have an steep increase in the yearly salary, while high school counterparts have almost no wage raise. Admittedly, now is not the best time for college graduates either, because of the international economic crisis. However, once they get a job, money have-nots make would not be even close to one that haves could make.
It is a well-know fact that the world has been going through economic crisis and this resulted in far fewer opportunities for students to get a job. In addition, students are suffering from all the pressure from parents, and relatives continuously torturing by asking a bunch of emotionally attacking questions about their future. Then, after years of working at a company and high school graduates find out about the salary they make and others with a graduation certificate make and finally have-nots are likely to feel left behind. Over the long period of time, colleges have been clearly considered overly valued and I agree to a great extent. However, considering three main points mentioned above, we find it very inevitable for students to powerlessly follow the mainstream.