Blue Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic To College Analysis

“What’s the key to success in the United States?”(Steinberg,2010), author Jacques Steinberg starts off his article “Plan B: Skip College” with a powerful question that has been asked by many Americans. Majority of Americans first thoughts would be higher education. The ideology that obtaining a degree is the best and sometimes only way to be successful in the American economy. This has been instilled in numerous children growing up. Steinberg states “perhaps no more than half of who began a four-year bachelor's degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years according to the department of education”(Steinberg,2010). Students who tend to not excel in high school often take longer, or at times finish a higher education at all. These

Libby Sanders author of “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College,” talks about people of the baby boomer times (1946-1965) returning to college. The exhaustion of physical labor throughout the years are now beginning to take effect, leading them to return back to school where they can then pursue either a new career path that is less labor intense or gain more skills in keep their current jobs. Sanders addresses a couple arguments in her reading. First being community colleges making the proper changes in order to accommodate and make colleges more accessible for people of greater age. With changing career paths at a later age has people feeling the need to continue working through what would of been there years of retirement.

In his essay, “Yes a College Education is Worth the Cost,” writer Rodney Smith discusses how students of this generation don’t care about receiving a great education for the future. Throughout his essay he explains how a college education is worth the cost. He stated that people between the ages of 18-34 say they would much rather get a job and make money than spend money to go back to school to obtain a higher degree. Smith’s family grew up in Oklahoma and they viewed education as an investment. Smith was influenced by his father’s upbringing and attended college and law school just like his father. By establishing and building his case about how education is worth the cost, uses a great deal of evidence, his argument is well organized, and he gains the audience’s attention. Background of the author

In the article, “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College” from Writing Now, author Libby Sander talks about workers in the baby boomer generation that are attending college to get new skills for the new jobs they hope to land. Sander says that middle aged people coming back to college is becoming more common as they become unable to do physical demanding jobs but are too young to retire (Sander 642).

As an older adult who is now going back to college, I have many experiences in my life and career that have helped me appreciate how college opens more opportunities. Like Braakma, I have also experienced backbreaking manual labor jobs; moving steel beams and working in a factory on an assembly line. These experiences made me quickly realize that I wanted a different career path. When I couldn't even lift my arms at the end of the day from exhaustion and pain, I knew I wanted to pursue higher education for the opportunity to work in the computer field. Because technology constantly changes and increases, I have continually gone to school to renew my skills. As a blue-collar worker who has gone back to college several times in my adult life, I know higher education has improved my career prospects. Now, I am now attending college as an older adult to change my career path yet again. The opportunities I am pursuing in my career will only be possible with a college degree.

Recently there has been a lot of debate about the importance of college education. Students are asking if it’s worth the debt to attend a four year university or community college. Some are thinking what are the benefits of a degree is in the workforce. With college tuition increasing and state fundings lowering, low income students are struggling to attain a higher education. College institutions should have a role to provide students higher education and equal opportunity to students to increase social mobility yet intergenerational reproduction of privilege has produced inequality in education.

After twelve years of mandatory schooling, eighteen years of listening to parents, the time has come. Senioritis kicks in, and students are wondering if four more years of school is the right choice for them. College is expensive, is a lot of work and takes a lot of valuable time, that could be spent making money. Two questions that arise are Is a college degree worth what students are paying? and Will they be getting what they want out of college? Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus answer these questions in their article “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission”? This article outlines what colleges are doing poorly, such as offering too many sabbaticals, not spreading donations around, not engaging all students and not making them use their

Many students are leaving college with uncertainties about their career and wondering if their chances of becoming successful are being taking away from them by politicians and rising debt. Concerns for the future is what’s making democrat candidate Bernie Sanders so popular amongst many millennials voters, because he cares about how helping students gain the life they want and need after college. By raising awareness on lowering students’ debt, and doing things the untraditional way, by holding big business accountable for their actions, millennials see Bernie Sanders as a way to stand up for their future. Future students and students that are entering the work force are worried about their mobility and wondering if higher education is the way to gaining a good job or career. The issues that are

Many young people think that obtaining a college degree is the best way—perhaps the only way—to get a good job anymore. So is it still possible to get a good job without one? According to Professor Blanche D. Blank, attaining a college degree doesn’t always guarantee success. In his published article “Degrees: Who Needs Them?”, he argues that American college is not teaching young adults the actual skills they need for the workforce, instead the education system is becoming a jumble of generalized credits that amount to a degree. College is becoming a mold for one to fit in the technological culture, rather than to release one to actively engage in the pursuit of knowledge. Blank begins building his credibility with personal experiences and

As the world of work becomes more complex, many workers need training to avoid losing their jobs or being passed over for promotion. Consequently, many who would not have considered college 20 or even 15 years ago are finding themselves back in school. As adults become students, employers, colleges, and workers are changing old notions about how to go about pursuing higher learning.

Adult students applying to college is more common than faculty thinks. Colleges are seeing more adults returning to college to complete a degree that they began when they were younger. The adult student is working longer in life and needs to keep up with their competition which is a younger group and better-qualified. The younger employee is technical savvy and has graduated from college with new ideas to share in the workforce. The research that will be included in this paper will focus on the conceptual framework.

Elementary school, middle school, high school, college―that’s how we’re told our education careers should go. After college you go on and get a job based on the degree you received. Seems simple right? According to Erik Lowe in his Seattle Times article “Keep Washington’s College Tuition Affordable,” he informs that people in his generation are the first to be less educated than their parents, in the United States. He explains that this is due to the high cost of tuition followed by a huge amount of student loan debt. Lowe believes that there needs to be a significant change in the country’s higher education systems (in reference to the tuition costs) or the decline of college attendance will continue. There needs to be a decrease of

In the article, “Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges”, Peter Gray states, “There has been an increase in diagnosable mental health problems, but there has also been a decrease in the ability of many young people to manage the everyday bumps in the road of life”. It has come up a lot that millennials do not have Grit, unlike other generations. Millennials come off as lazy or immature in society today. Millennials always have a reminder from their parents or grandparents saying, “back in my day....” or “you’re lucky, you have it easy”. Other generations tend to give millennials a harder time on how they are performing in a school setting. Some generations believe that millennials are babied by their parents. Everyone has their own opinions about other generations. There are many similarities and differences between millennials and other generations on how they perform in schools. Some examples on how they are different and similar are work ethic, pressure, and technology. These examples come from actual opinions from millennials and other generations on their perspectives when comparing millennials and other generations in a school setting.

The GPA does not define the work ethic that I could perform in a job. It is difficult balancing family and getting an education. I am the person who cares for my mom and takes her to her doctor appointments, gets her medication, and makes sure she is okay when I am not with her. I have six other siblings, but they are too busy with their own families to take my mom to her doctor appointments or even get her medications. Whenever I am unable to take my mom to her appointments or when I am not with her at home, I get disciplined by my family because I am at college instead of making my mom the priority. Even though my mother has told me, again and again, to get my education first and she could be last, I cannot abandon her. This has caused me

Does college really give graduates the tools and knowledge required to succeed? In the article “Where College Fails Us”, author Caroline Bird attempts to argue that college may not be worth as much as people are led to believe. Bird believes that with the rise in college graduates being well above the Department of Labor Statistics anticipated job needs, college is quickly becoming a waste of time. Moreover, several reasons listed depict colleges many shortcomings, including the stress it puts on students and the unrealistic expectations it gives them combined with huge financial burdens. The author believes that the successful college graduates would have been successful regardless of their education, and that the majority of students felt forced to attend. Finally, she states that before wasting your money on a college education the reader should reflect on her article and determine if there is still value in a college experience. Although Caroline Bird presents many persuading arguments against the college experience in her article, I believe her logic to be outdated and generalized, and her content lacking of discrediting information. I disagree that all college graduates are taking dead-end jobs, and universities have withdrawn from the social side of their educational experience.