College Level Education Improves the Quality of Our Lives - Research Paper Example

College Education improves Lives Introduction Since the first day that brought the first dividing lines on the globe of the world, nations, countries, states, groups, societies or tribes have focused their energies towards achieving advancement, progression, expansion and sustainability for their people. However, the most important question that they have asked themselves is what will bring about this development? What would be the key of this progress? This is one of the questions, which has haunted the human generation since ages and without any doubts, still does. Nations are still in search of that magic formula which can provide them the competitive advantage to compete, survive, and foster. However, a careful analysis of the modern history would reveal that finding this key is not so troublesome. In fact, this paper is an attempt to prove that the point that higher-level education or college or university education is that magic factor. The rest of this paper would be a series of arguments aimed at explaining why “College level education improves the quality of our lives by providing higher wages, better jobs, successful careers and advanced world view”. The same would take place by presenting both sides of the pictures, using an informed debate with plenty of real life examples to reinforce ideas. There would be a brief presentation of these ideas in terms of micro, personal or individual level and then the larger portion of the ink would aim at looking towards improvement in lives at a macro, societal or nation wide level. Discussion The more you learn, the more you earn and do not be a fool, stay in school. Many proponents of college education would use slogans like to tell students how important it is to take their school and college education very seriously. A research under the banner of Census of population and Housing and US department Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs gathered data for years of 1980, 1998 and 2002 of employed adults over the ages of 25. The study found out that over all these years there has been a clear correlation between the educational levels and employment. More interesting, over the past years, this trend has further strengthened due to factors like increased competition and other global factors. For example in 1980, the employment rates of people that never attended any college had employment rates less than 43 percent , however, people who did attend college and then held an associate degree, bachelor degree or a master degree had employment rates of 84, 86 and 85 percent respectively. However, the data for 1998, surprisingly, reveals that only 11 percent of the people that never attended college were a part of the employed people, however, for college graduates, associate degree holders, bachelors and masters, the percentages were 64, 86, 95 and 86 respectively. Somewhat a similar trend continued in the year 2002 as well. Furthermore, this research also indicates that people who are college graduates have been earning around 4 to 10 times wages as compared to people who have never attended. Quite clearly, college education appears to be playing vital role in getting people better jobs and jobs with higher wages (Kerr, Gade & Kawaoka, 106-107). Furthermore, a recent research in this regard by the New York Times (2010) reveals that the recent recession has hit non-college gradates the most and unemployment rates have went up to as high as 15 percent. On the other hand, for college graduates this rate has remained varying around 2 to 4 percent when the average unemployment is as high as 8-10 percent. Early teenage is the time when boys and girls, physically, mentally, emotionally and socially are transforming into men and women. They understand concepts of society, gender roles, expectations of others, expected behavior and take a wider approach towards looking at things. College education helps students to learn so many critical things, which remain crucial in the coming years and thus help them making their careers successful (Kerr, Gade & Kawaoka, 106-107). In fact, the whole time spent in college education is nothing but a training program aimed at preparing students for the structure. College education helps them in building and forming their personality and makes them learn most of the skills, attitudes, behaviors, knowledge, ideas, and techniques needed to survive the coming tough times. When students wake up in the morning for reaching to the college early and on time, they are learning the importance of time and value of time as the most important asset. Moreover, it teaches them that whenever a commitment is made, it should be fulfilled on time (Rury, 3-13). The same applies to the corporate world. People who can manage their time effectively are usually the ones to excel faster. In fact, time management is so important that over the past few years, it has emerged as separate subject and field of study (Giddens, 227-228). Meeting the deadlines for assignments teaches these to do the same in the corporate world. In fact, life is full of projects and assignments where we need to manage quality and time, which are at time inversely proportional to each other (Allan, 25-29). Many of the skills that students learn from their college lives are the ones that help them get along with people well in their upcoming years. For example, Group work, group presentations, making friends and knowing others helps the college students to distinguish themselves from other animals since it is said that, “man is a social animal”. Socializing with others, establishing contacts, making friends, building networks, knowing people, impressing others, presenting one self effectively is an important key to success as an adult and especially in the corporate world. When students work in groups for coming up a project, they actually taste how it is going to be when they would be working in work teams at some corporate organizations (Betts, 75-89). When students make presentations, they are actually learning that how they would make presentations when they boss would ask them the same with short deadlines. When receive criticism from teachers they are actually having a glance at how would be the criticism of their boss. When a student raises his hand and convinces his teacher on an important thought in a big classroom, he is actually building that confidence within with him self that would help him to persuade his managers, directors and CEO’s for the projects that he will come up with. When a student talks with respect and esteem towards his teacher, he is learning how he would deal with his parents and bosses in the future. Furthermore, college education opens the door the real life and becomes a crash course for the difficulties and hardships that coming ahead. When a student finds himself burdened with assignments, reports, presentations, case studies, home work, exams, tests and others, he learns that life is not a piece of cake and hardships are going to be at every step. When a student enters in the classroom and finds out that he is supposed to appear in a surprise quiz, he gets to know that life is full of bitter surprises, especially in the corporate world (Cook & King, 309-311). When a student works with people who are unknown to him, he learns how to introduce and impress alien people and work with them even if you do not like them. When a student appears in interviews and presentations at college, he learns how to dress up in the corporate world. When a student faces an extra ordinary situation at college and appeals to the management, he needs to go through all the levels of organizational hierarchy, which make him familiar with the art of persuading people and getting work out of them. There are a countless number of things, which students learn from having formal education. In fact, every part and activity of students and their colleges, directly contributes to their personality building of the future (Zmuda, Kuklis & Kline, 79-89). Quite reasonably, societies are made of individuals that contribute towards the societal goals and if any nation or group of people is progressing, it clearly means that they individuals at personal levels are also moving towards improvement and advancement and sum of their individual progression, makes the group as a whole to progress. The introductory part of the paper discusses the fact that higher education is that magic element, which enables societies to continuously progress and improve. Here we will prove the same point. According to multiple researches and findings, countries like Congo, Burkina Faso, India, Somalia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia, South Africa, China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Canada, and Kuwait are the richest in terms of natural resources (Barton & Walker, 95-99). They have huge amounts of natural resources that last for many centuries and in terms of worth, they may account for trillions of dollars. However, surprisingly, most of these countries are the poorest nations in the world with comparatively low levels of GDP, high levels of unemployment, poverty, and inflations. Another interesting fact comes up when one looks at the data of countries listed according to their GDP and GDP per capita (Rury, 3-13). According to the total GDP countries like United States, Japan, China, Brazil, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada appear at the top of the list. Moreover, in terms of GDP per capita, countries like Luxemburg, Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, United States, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, Iceland, Ireland, Singapore, and Canada are amongst the high flyers (O'Shea, 445-449). This leads us to the question that if natural resources, which were widely believed to be the distinguishing factor and on which the world has witnessed many wars in the past, have no significant role to play in the development of nations then what serves as the difference. Despite the fact that there may be many other factors, which are determining their extra ordinary success yet, a careful look at these countries would reveal that they do share something in common and which is the fact that that they have the top most high schools, colleges and universities. Even a quick glance at the list of the top 100 universities in the world reveals that more than 70 of them are present in United States, followed by United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Austria, Japan, and a few others (Kerr, Gade & Kawaoka, 106-107). Societies that have progressed over the years have focused all their energies to build and strengthen their human resource by improving their educational system. Financial and physical resources are perishable, can be stolen, copied, destroyed, can get outdated or rusted but nothing of them is true for the investment that is made in educating the youth of the society (Fullan, 159-167). Even history reveals that colleges and universities have remained the key factor in determining the future of nations. As the history reveals that right after the death of Prophet Muhammad in the 6th century, Muslims entered into their golden age and an expansion occurred that made Islam reach all corners of the globe. Starting from the 7th century until the 13th century Muslims ruled the world, and at one time, virtually the entire known world of that time (which excludes North America, South America, and Australia) was under the Muslim control (Allan, 25-29). The same happened because in the early days Muslims were able to direct their energies on some important sayings of Prophet Muhammad that stressed the importance of education, research, and discovery and made it an obligatory part of the religion. Within no time, Middle East and Africa was filled with educational places, research places, laboratories, dispensaries, Madarsahs (a place of religious education of Muslims), and others. Muslims made the first discoveries in the history of humankind in subjects like chemistry, biology, optics, mathematics algebra, geometry, astronomy, astrology, physics, and others. Theories of Jabar Ibn Yahan, Al kindi, Ibn Sina, Al-Ghazali, Jaffar al Sadiq, Al Khawarzami, and many others are still a part of modern curriculum of related subjects (Zmuda, Kuklis & Kline, 79-89). In fact, all the discoveries and inventions of western scientists and experts were just an extension of the work done by the Muslim scientists. Even in the medieval world, education of youth was able to provide them with such a sustainable advantage, which helped them emerge as a leading and unstoppable force. Quite understandably, their educated and enlightened youth was well prepared to take on the critical positions in administration, their young scientists were all geared up to provide new and better technologies to their armies and defense systems, had better theories to run the offices. In short, they had created a new generation better than the previous one and so on. Important here to note is that not only the rise but only the decline of Muslims and rise of the rest is also explainable with the discussed theme (Betts, 75-89). History reveals that after decades of control and leadership over the world, Muslims became so obsessed with power that they failed to remember and pay attention to the education in science in technology. Their youth was no longer going to high schools and universities in the same number and along with their kings and queens, the society gradually found it lagging behind the world (Smart, 16-23). The same is provable through an historical example as well. It was in the early 17th century when Shah Jahan was ruling South Asia under the Muslim Mughal dynasty. It was during an internal visit that Mumtaz Mahal, who was the beloved wife of Shah Jahan feel extremely sick after giving birth to her fourteenth child. The king did everything possible to cure his wife but all went in vain and on June 7, 1631, Mumtaz Mahal closed her eyes forever. This was one of the biggest shocks to the king and he spent days crying his eyes out. He took no interest in the matters of the state and developed hatred for women (O'Shea, 445-449). However, one day, surprisingly, he called one his assistants and asked him to devote all their resources of the kingdom towards helping the king fulfill a promise the he had made to her late wife. The promise was regarding the creation of a wonder tomb that had no example or comparison on earth. After years of labor work, designs, building, destroying, rebuilding, spending money like water, and causing deaths of many labors, he build something which is still a wonder for the world called “The Taj Mahal” (Barton & Walker, 95-99). Now let us move the focus from Shah Jahan to another king who was ruling Sweden at that very same time. Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632) who is also known as the founder of the Swedish empire also had a very similar story to that of Shah Jahan. He also had a wife, which he loved with all his heart and soul. Just when Mumtaz was giving birth to Gohar Ara (the fourteenth child), Adolphus’ wife was giving birth to the prince of the kingdom. When Mumtaz died due to complications in giving birth to her child, Adolphus’s wife also left the world due to some post delivery complications. Both Shah Jahan and Adolphus were that pain of loneliness and separation from their loved wife at almost the same time; however, there was considerable difference in the expression of both of these Kings. Shah Jahan ordered the construction of “The Taj Mahal”, however, Adolphus called his assistant to order to bring two young, intelligent women and educated at least at the primary level, from each town of the kingdom to the palace. Before that he ordered to build a high school or university to a train them to become nurses who could specially handle pregnancy problems and delivery complications (Kerr, Gade & Kawaoka, 106-107). They should then train other women and this chain should go on to spread over the whole Kingdom. The king expressed his desire that no other women shall now die while giving birth of any child. Quite clearly, the responses differed a lot and the results are evident today. Shah Jahan was fond of music, poetry, and buildings and invested in the same, however; Adolphus was interested in the warfare of its citizens in terms of ensuring education and health facilities for all. Mughal Empire collapsed towards the end of the 17th century; however, Europe was emerging with its industrial revolution at the same time. In fact, Europe was able to put an end to its dark age because of formation of high schools and universities and Sweden specifically has emerged as one of those countries with the highest GDP per capita. (Keith & Bagley, 49-51). Even today, the secret of the success of west remains in the advancement in good educational system which leads to creation of professionals, experts, management expert, scientists, engineers, doctors and others who are capable to run the country. The taboos that we associate with most of the Muslims countries of narrow mindedness, backwardness, terrorism and others are because in more than 56 Muslim countries of the world there 380 universities and none of them is able to appear on the list of the top 500 universities in the world (O'Shea, 445-449). Quite understandably, absence of universities indicates absence or weaknesses of college education system as well. The only Muslim country, which has some respect in terms of educational system, is Egypt and statistics reveal that it is one of top most Muslim countries in the world in terms of economic power. It was in 1952 when Abdul Naseer, Abdul Hakeem, and Anwar Sadat removed the corrupt Amir Shah from the government of Egypt; they immediately made efforts to sell the property of Shah and gathered more than 70 million pounds out of the same. They invested it completely in the field of education. Observers report that at that time, every day, there were at least two or three schools opening in some part of Egypt and the same had not happened in the 70-year history of Egypt. Today, Egypt is evolving as a strong power in the Middle East (Smart, 16-23). The rise and fall of Muslims, Shah Jahan and Adolphus and Egypt example reinforces the idea, repeatedly, that education, and specially college education can allow not only individuals but also societies to broaden their horizons and have an advanced worldview. Conclusion Towards the end of this paper, the evidence presented above helps us to conclude that college education plays an extremely crucial role for individuals and their societies. Most people are what they are because of stuff that they learned at their colleges, whether consciously or unconsciously. Students who excel, contribute, participate, and pay attention to their college education definitely end up learning many things, which are otherwise unknown, or difficult to grasp for others. Additionally, time plays a critical role in the same (Ivanič, 387). College age is the time when a boy or a girl is entering into the last stage of transformation. This is last phase when an individual is most open towards environmental stimuli. Despite the fact that much learning happens after this age as well, however, in the later ages, individuals are not so open towards environmental stimuli since unlearning becomes a difficult process. Therefore, what is learnt during the college education remains with the person forever and good college education remains an important factor in defining the overall personality of an individual (Rury, 3-13). Therefore, by looking at the evidence we can conclude “College level education improves the quality of our lives by providing higher wages, better jobs, successful careers and advanced world view” Works Cited Allan, George. Rethinking college education. Kansas City: University Press of Kansas, 1997. 25-29. Barton, Len, & Walker, Stephen. Education and social change. New York: Taylor & Francis, 1985. 95-99. Betts, George Herbert. Social Principles of Education. New York: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2009. 75-89. Cook, Bryan, & King, Jacqueline E. Improving lives through higher education: campus program and policies for low-income adults. San Francisco: American Council on Education, 2005. 309-311. Fullan, Michael. The new meaning of educational change. New York: Teachers College Press, 2001. 159-167. Giddens, Anthony. Profiles and critiques in social theory. California: University of California Press, 1982. 227-228. Ivanič, Roz. 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