Higher Learning

The argument about higher learning has been a long standing controversy. Some people in America question if the core curriculum taught in college prepares college students for the real world. They wonder if the main courses such as English or Science really help students develop the communicating and critical thinking skills needed to get a good job in today’s society. Another argument is the belief that only certain people should go to college, while others believe that everybody should go to college. Two prime examples of these opinions are the opinions of Sanford Ungar and Charles Murray. Ungar believes that everyone should go to college and receive some form of liberal arts degree, while Charles Murray believes that only students in to 90 percentile should go to college. Both men agree that a liberal arts degree is a great thing, but their opinions on when it should be taught and who it should be taught too are very different. While Murray’s points are somewhat accurate I believe that Ungar’s ideas are more persuasive because he recommends that everybody gets a liberal arts degree helping increase the amount of people with the critical thinking and communication skills businesses are looking for.

Sanford Ungar wrote the essay 7 Major Misperceptions About the Liberal Arts. In this essay Ungar describes the benefits of getting a liberal arts degree. In misperception 2, Ungar states how even though people believe the notion of “who wants to hire someone with an irrelevant degree?” most businesses actually prefer students to have liberal arts degrees. The businesses want this because they know liberal arts schools mainly focuses on the key factors that they look for. For example, 89% of businesses included in a 2009 survey said that they were looking for more people to communicate orally and in writing more effectively. (Ungar) Ungar also goes in to detail on how it is very costly to attend a liberal arts school, and how it may be out of the question for low-income families. However, he comes back to explain that if these low-income families are able to afford sending some one off to a liberal arts school that person, because there newer to the ideas of higher education they will be quick in catching up to the rich people who are used to the idea of higher education. Ungar also goes in to how the Chinese have been studying our liberal arts programs, because they believe that the system that we are on now is a good system to adopt. They believe this to be a good thing because the liberal art helps prepare people for many different jobs not just for one career.

Charles Murray’s view on the liberal arts is different than Unger’s view. Charles Murray wrote the essay Are Too Many People Going to College. In this essay Murray writes about how he believes that there are too many people going to college who shouldn’t be in college. Murray expresses in this essay how he believes that our SAT scores describe how intelligent we are. He expresses how people in the 80th percentile shouldn’t go to college, because they wouldn’t enjoy college. Murray discusses how liberal education in college is “taking on the tough stuff.” Murray goes into detail on how he believes that we should learn all the facts and information that we learn in college should be learned when we are in elementary and middle school. He believes this, because when we are in the grade range of kindergarten through eighth grade we as kids like to memorize facts. So he believes that these are the perfect years to teach this factual knowledge, so we can spend our high school, and college years improving our critical thinking, communication, and our creativity. Murray then describes how our system of education is failing. He discusses on how our society is based off the idea of everyone needs to have at least a B.A. degree just to be considered in the job market. Murray tries to get the point across that not everybody has the learning abilities to make it through college, and if they don’t get a degree they are ridiculed by their peers as being “too stupid” or “too lazy” (Murray). He believes that people should do what they are good at, not what society tells them to do in other words “It’s better to do what you are great at than to go and try to achieve something your only average at. That is why Murray doesn’t think everybody should go to college, because not everybody was made for college.

Both men agree that a liberal education is a necessary thing but each point is different between the two. Such as Ungar believes we should learn liberal arts while in college to help increase our critical thinking skills, and our communication skills whether it be in writing or verbally. While Ungar believes this, Murray believes that we should receive a liberal arts education in grades K- 8, because he believes that in these years we actually like learning new facts and memorizing historical stories. In his eyes these are perfect years to do this because it helps us understand more advance problems and think with a higher intelligence. With this early learning of the liberal arts it will make going to and understanding college better. Each man also has a different view on who should go to college. Ungar believes that everybody should go to college to receive a liberal arts degree, because the liberal arts helps people deal with job change. For instance, if a person who has a degree in liberal arts and sciences, that person has the ability to be successful in many different job ranges. In Murray’s argument he believes only people in the 90th percentile and above should go, because he doesn’t believe that the people who aren’t in this range will enjoy college. Murray believes that the work load given in college is too much for these students to handle. He explains in his essay how he thinks that these people should go not to a four year college, but to a two year college to get a degree that will actually benefit those people. Another difference that these two men have is on the usefulness of a B.A. Ungar writes how businesses want people to pursue a B.A., because it shows the ability to think critically, show innovation, and an increase in creativity. Murray believes that businesses only look at B.A. as a “screening device” to rule out different people looking to work for those businesses (Murray). According to Murray, when businesses do this screening they are shutting themselves off to most of the talent. So with companies doing this, this is increasing the amount of people going to college who probably shouldn’t be there.

Out of these two essays I believe that Ungar is more persuasive in his argument, because he believes that everybody needs to have a liberal arts education. This to me makes him more persuasive, because as I said earlier, if we have more people who have liberal arts degrees the more people we have that have a higher critical thinking rate and better communication skills. Murray’s argument towards this does make sense, but with the logic and belief system that he uses he is basically telling people that if you’re not great in a classroom, or if you don’t do good on your SAT you’re not smart enough for a four year college, which is not always true. Ungar also makes the point that the liberal arts are not for job specialization, but for preparing a person to be able to conform to job changes. Another point Ungar expresses how he believes that the liberal arts are not only for rich families, but for everyone. He also explains how the disadvantage catch up quickly being new to the idea of higher learning, because they are actually willing to learn this new information, so that they can get ahead in life to try, and accomplish new things.