Arguement for Education

Essay by tony42College, UndergraduateB, April 2004

download word file, 3 pages 3.7 1 reviews

Downloaded 85 times

In today's society, education is stressed as being the key to success. Why

is this? Most students say they want an education to make money. Being

educated usually goes hand-in-hand with a relatively high-paying job. The

purpose of an education, however, has little to do with money. Getting paid

is the reward. Typically, there are three major arguments to describe the

purpose of an education.

The first argument states that the purpose of a higher education is to

develop a "well-rounded" population. This means that everyone should get

a taste of everything, thus creating a society with broad ideas. In primary

and secondary schools. students study a wide range of courses; including

math, English, and science. If everyone was educated, it would create a

relatively stable society with a population that is able to function

independently. However, I believe that this argument lacks direction. With

all these "well-rounded" people, where would doctors and teachers come

from? It is purposeful to be educated in many general areas, but without a

career goal or "major" in mind, an education can be rendered as functional

to a point.

The second argument is that liberal arts education should produce

specialists in a given field of study. The result of this would be the

advancement of that field. If someone was educated to be a specialist, they

typically would earn a greater income. This is because they become more

valuable to society. A person with an extended knowledge of a field can

expand upon it by applying their own experience and intuition. An example

of this type of education would be a doctor or a teacher. A doctor with more

applied experience tends to be superior over a doctor that has book and

classroom based knowledge. Schools should start specialized training

early on. Students...