In the HBO television series The Newsroom, the main character Will McAvoy is asked in a college-hosted debate why America is the greatest country in the world, and he rattles off a list of statistics as to why America is not the greatest country in the world. He goes on to say that we were. He says, “We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy." We were able to do and be things because we were informed. It was intelligence, wisdom, and enlightenment elevated America to a premier position in the world, and we must have education in order to reach new levels of greatness if we wish continue toward success.
However, currently our schools are overcrowded and underfunded, teachers are overworked and constantly criticized, and students languish in classes where testing is more important than critical thinking or creativity. Considering these issues, we must ask the bigger question, then: What is the purpose of education? Because education is important for both the nation and the individual, this essay will discuss two purposes for education: first, education is important for individuals to be able their lives for themselves, and, second, education is important for the success and security of our society.
A Personal Purpose of Education: To Live for Oneself
One personal purpose of education is to enable individuals to live for themselves. In other words, many individuals are faced with the choice of creating for themselves their own destiny or following the wishes of their parents. Many of these individuals find that an education allows them to follow the path that they want in life. The College Board, an organization devoted to promoting "excellence and equity in education" through research, curriculum development, and scholarship, offers research that shows how, by acquiring postsecondary education, individuals can fulfill their financial needs and thus live prosperous lives that enable people to live for themselves and pursue their dreams in their article, “The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society.” Even though university education is costly, it “does pay” (5). With such education, individuals increase their chances of getting high paid jobs and establishing for themselves promising futures. Also, financial security relieves the pressure of being dependent on government benefits and allows us to take a step forward and establish ourselves as independent citizens. It is true that once college students accomplish their goal of getting postsecondary education majority of them are stormed with loans. However, the College Board states that, “Those with master’s degrees earned almost twice as much, and those with professional degrees earned over three times as much per year as high school graduates” (10). Postsecondary education is a great means through which one can achieve a promising future and fulfill their wants and needs without financial insecurity.
Another example of how education affords us the opportunities to live a life for ourselves can be seen in the experiences of Mexican-American writer and professor of English, Olivia Castellano. In her essay, "Canto, Locura, y Poesia," Castellano describes how she sought an education for herself in order to make her life what she wanted it to be instead of the life her parents wished for her. Many of Castellano's female relatives married young and began raising children at a very young age and her parents expected her to do the same. However, she was determined to go her own way and seek an education, and she announced in rage to her mother one day before storming off to her bedroom, "I was put on this earth to make books, not babies." Castellano felt quite differently about the plans her parents had for her: she did not want to get married, raise children, and clean houses like her parents expected her to do. So, she quickly became absorbed in her books, and by the age of fourteen she was reading Marx, Rimbaurd, the Marquis de Sade. Castellano, like so many, used her education to overcome her everyone's limited expectations for her life and became a college professor so that she could a live the life that she envisioned for herself.
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