Caroline Bird, in her essay "College is a Waste of Time and Money," argues that most students do not want to be in college and that college, in any case, does not do what it is sup[posed to do or is expected to do for the students and/or for the society. Bird's argument is weak because her premises are replete with generalizations, appeals to emotion, irrelevancies, and insults, and therefore her aforementioned conclusions, which should be supported by these faulty premises, are weak.
Bird argues, just as the title states, that the years and financial cost of college are not justified by the return which college gives to the student and society. She uses a number of measuring sticks in making this argument, but none of those measurements provide strong support for her conclusions.
Bird gives three fundamental reasons why college is a waste of time and money.
First, she argues that college is a waste of time and money because most students do not want to be there and because they do not want to learn.
Second, she argues that college is a waste of time based on the premise that college does not provide the students or society with the results with which it is supposed to provide them.
Third, she argues that college is a waste of time and money because liberal arts is a religion rather than a path to success in the real world.
Bird's first argument (that college is a waste of time and money because most students do not want to be there and because they do not want to learn), even if it were true, would not lead to the conclusion that college is indeed a waste of time and money. Her appeals to authority are numerous, citing as she does, without including their names or affiliations, "professors and administrators," "one sociologist," "economists," "the academic head of a famous liberal arts college," and "most college administrators." If she had named these individuals and groups, the reader could check her sourc...