Living on the North Shore of Chicago, a wealthy area, it is expected that every student will go to college. I tried to talk to my mother on the subject of whether or not college is worth it in this economy but I hardly got a word in. She wouldn't even hear me talk about the possibility of not going. But is it just this area that puts so much pressure on students to go to college?
The whole point of college is so that you can be educated in a field in which you will find a "good" job. But, numerically speaking, there are only so many doctors in the world. While it's true that a society cannot function without doctors and nurses and business people and government officials, we also could not have a society without the supposedly "low class" jobs like postal workers, garbage men, food service employees, and cleaning people. That's what makes me wonder: Is it just the North Shore that's so obsessed with college? Are other areas like this too? If not, is it a class thing? And if so, are finances the only thing stopping people from higher education?
1 comment:
Hey Shannon, I agree with your second point. New Trier as well as the entire North Shore seems fanatic about college, and I think that has much to do with the expectations given out by parents as well as a sense of lateral classism- keeping up with our social class.
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