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Tough states that a huge reason for the declining enrollment rates is rising tuition costs. The burden of paying these costs is placed on students and their families. These rates are not affordable by most of the population and thus loans have to be taken out. These loans are paid over the course of many years and take away a substantial portion of money earned. The cost of attending college and paying for tuition makes it so that many college graduates are making less than those who never went to college even though on average they make more a year.

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1) College wealth premium - The wealth & assets that a college graduate accumulates over their life.

2) College wage premium - The gap between the average salaries of college graduates and non-college graduates in the nation.

3) Ideology - A system of beliefs usually related to politics.

4) College Casino - A term used to describe a college student's chances of having their investment in college be successful.

5) Demographic - A specific group in a population.

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Americans are increasingly turning away from college. Why is this happening?

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Americans are increasingly turning away from college. Why is this happening?

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Tough states that the number of students enrolled in college/university in the USA has been steadily declining over the past couple of years. He uses the figures of 18 million students in 2010 dropping to under 15.5 million in 2021. To further illustrate his point, he then brings up statistics on high school students who went straight to college in 2016 as opposed to modern day. It was reported that there was an 8% drop from 70% to 62%. This drop in enrollment and college attainment for the USA stands out in comparison to the increasing enrollment and attainment rates in other nations. Tough then mentions how most nations within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have increased their college attainment rate by 20% and 11 countries now have better educated labor forces than the USA. This difference can be attributed to many reasons however a major one is the difference in tuition costs in which the USA is also a much more expensive outlier in comparison to other nations.

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College wage premium vs college wealth premium 

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College wage premium vs college wealth premium 

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Tough argues how the college wealth premium has made the college wage premium obsolete and makes the benefits of attending college disappear. The gap between wages for college graduates and non-college graduates remains high and demand for graduates increases as time goes on. However, enrollment hasn't reflected these figures because of the college wealth premium. This takes into account the assets and wealth a student has and will gain over their life. On average this wealth premium isn't substantial enough for the average student within low income, black, or Hispanic populations. Only those already in wealthy families and with previous family members who've attended college will gain a notable amount of wealth during their life.

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Tough argues that college is game of chance that is largely determined by controllable and uncontrollable factors. Some factors taken into account are a student's major, how much is owed, and the time taken to graduate. For example, if a student chooses a STEM major, their tuition is covered completely, and they graduate on time, their chances for success and accumulating wealth during their life are substantial. A student's chances go down the more they owe, the farther their major deviates from STEM and the longer they take to graduate. Some also drop out with debt which only makes it harder to gain wealth.

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Tough proposes left leaning ideology being taught in universities as one of the reasons why enrollment rates are dropping. Many republican students feel as though colleges are too left leaning and professors bring politics into the classroom too often. This is supported by the rough republican to democrat ratios seen within the student and staff populations in the nation with 1:3 for students 1:5 for professors.

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Tough proposes the statement that many young people are deterred from attending college because of the high risks associated with it. Unless you are from a wealthy background and have parents who have connections to a prestigious university your chances of graduating and living a life with minimal debt are very slim. A majority of the student population do not have access to such resources and unfortunately either drop out or graduate with a lot of debt. The demographics most affected are rural, black, low income and Latino populations. For them the risk of attending college is massive and many instead opt not to.

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The process of creating this argument map was a rather straightforward one. I first started out by rereading Tough’s text while looking out for some key items in the back of my mind. Specifically, I was looking for the central argument presented, the reasoning given to support said argument and lastly, any context given for the argument. Once I defined the central argument, I created a main post in Padlet with the argument and then started to link separate posts with arrows to it. Each post contained a reason or context for the argument. I then concisely summarized each reason/context provided in my own words within a paragraph or two. I kept it short so as to not simply regurgitate information. Summarizing took me a while to finish as it was a little tedious and slightly difficult to pinpoint what was important to include and leave out. In general, I decided to leave out most statistics and data from my summaries unless they were integral to the reason/argument as they cluttered my argument map. Lastly, I then created a separate post linked to the main post with key terms from the article and their definitions. I selected the key terms by looking at the reasons I selected and picking out the ideas/concepts that were most relevant to the argument. I tried to choose terms that a reader/viewer wouldn’t know at first glance.

Overall, I would say that the process in creating this map was very simple but effective in helping to hone my summarization, analysis, critical thinking, and organizational skills. I have always struggled with comprehending all the points of an argument presented in a text at first glance and/or read. Creating the map forced me to delve deeper into the text and pick apart the argument presented. I learned that if you don't understand a text, you can split it into different sections to make it easier to analyze and digest. In applying this method I was able to fully understand Tough’s argument and summarize it in my own words. I will definitely be applying this strategy to future projects as texts will only get harder and more complex.