Update 3/17/2022: While converting this blog from the medium for publishing writing assignments in college to one that I can use for my personal writing after graduation, I went through and deleted almost all of the posts I had made. However, I am reluctant to delete this one because it seems so relevant to where my career has taken me in the last two years. If this post seems irrelevant to my future blogging, just know that this was published originally in 2020.
Writing Log #1: Purpose of Public Education
As mentioned in this quote by Henry A. Giroux (2010),
Critical pedagogy opens up a space where students should be able top come to terms with their own power as critically engaged citizens; it provides a sphere where the unconditional freedom to question and assert is central to the purpose of schooling and higher education, if not democracy itself (p. 717)
as well as this one from the same article,
Universities are now largely defined through the corporate demand that they provide the skills, knowledge, and credentials to build a workforce that will enable the United States to compete and maintain its role as the major global economic and military power (p. 715)
higher education used to be concerned with promoting creative thinking within the classrooms that would eventually lead to well-rounded, free-thinkers interested in bettering their country and fiercely questioning the things that they know, yet it is now interested in teaching students to be good workers, ready to enter the capitalist sphere (Giroux 715-717). Some, like Giroux and Paulo Freire might consider this to be an issue, and they may push to move University intentions away from training people to enter the workforce. However, in my opinion, attempting to move away from the emphasis on workforce training is a detriment to students and merely presents a roadblock to those that the Universities swore to help.
According to a study by CollegeBoard, the average fee for a year of studying at a four-year university is $21,270, and the cost of tuition is rising faster than any other cost for students (Averaged published charges by sector over time); that’s a lot of money to be spending on broadening your creative thinking and becoming an engaged citizen. For example, take the degree I am earning at the University of Colorado Denver: 120 semester hours are required to graduate, yet only 36 of those hours will be earned from the English department. Although CU Denver is less expensive than some other universities at $9,782, assuming 12 credits a semester (Tuition and Costs), a student would still fork out $48,910 over the course of the five years it would take them to graduate, and only $14,673 of that would pay for their major-specific courses.
I think that universities need to accept their role in preparing students to enter the workforce; although, some universities are already committing to this idea more fully than others. Computer Engineering and Management programs are more likely to train professionals, while Arts colleges may be more likely to promote the practice of art. The specifics over the levels which colleges are concerned with the employability of their students needs to be researched further (Tavares and Amaral 920). Personally, I went to University because I plan to get a job when I’m done, so college should fulfill that purpose. Even if wanted higher education to return to its original use case, college is just too expensive for me to be concerned with studying my freedom in a democratic society. The more that Universities insist on enrollment in classes outside of our major-specific classes that are meant to turn us into creative, critical thinkers, the more loans we may have to take out, and that financial detriment will follow us after graduation.
Sources
CollegeBoard. “Average Published Charges by Sector over Time – Research – College Board.” Research.CollegeBoard, National Merit Scholarship Corporation, 1 Nov. 2019, research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-published-charges-sector-over-time.
Giroux, Henry A. “Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy.” Policy Futures in Education, vol. 8, no. 6, 2010, pp. 715–721., doi:10.2304/pfie.2010.8.6.715.
Regents of University of Colorado, The. “Tuition and Costs.” University of Colorado Denver: Anschutz Medical Campus, 2020, http://www.ucdenver.edu/tuition/Pages/default.aspx.
Sin, Cristina, Orlanda Tavares, and Alberto Amaral. “Accepting Employability as a Purpose of Higher Education? Academics’ Perceptions and Practices.” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 44, no. 6, 2019, pp. 920-931.
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