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The High Price of a College Education

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In the article, “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?” by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, colleges are described as “a $420-billion industry” with numerous employees that are more dedicated to research and training than the education and teaching of young minds (180). There are many things colleges could do to make their universities worth the money. First, professors need to engage themselves with all of their students. Teaching is essential to universities, and students are going to succeed more if they have support from their professors. Having an attentive and caring professor makes students no longer scared to challenge themselves and make mistakes. College should not only make students more intelligent, it should also make them more social and courteous. Students in today’s society are majoring in broad subjects, instead of focusing on literature and science. Being an undergraduate is “a time to liberate the imagination, not a time to worry about paying off the debt one is accumulating" (180). Colleges need to focus more on their professors’ teaching and the students’ education, rather than the money itself. There are many important aspects within a university that are not closely examined. For example, professors are very important, but at some universities, people would agree that they take advantage of the school system. Therefore, the most beneficial change a university could make is to remove tenures. Having tenures does not motivate professors to “improve their teaching [or] take on introductory courses” (181). Instead, it just takes away more learning time for the students and costs the universities a large sum of money. Along with that, colleges should minimize the number of sabbaticals their faculty takes. Professors should not be worried about taking a mental break from teaching because they should be worried about how to improve their teaching and help students thrive. In most cases, the

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