Opfell 1 Quintin Opfell Professor Mills ENC 1101 24 October 2013 College Degrees Value and Success The

question of whether a college degree is worth it and if it guarantees success is debatable while many sources explain if it is or is not. With many high school graduates going into college decide whether it has a high value and worth the cost to get a degree. The authors for many articles define success in their own terms and describe if it is beneficial to have a degree or could be better off without it. The articles by New York Times and Cracked explain the value of college while New York Times displays their information with from a financial and statistical approach and the author of Cracked uses more of a personal reflection with humor in his article. Robert Brockway, author of The Question Youre Not Asking: Should You Go To College? starts off notifying the reader if they have a degree that effects the world should not read this. He gives a clear statement to readers that if youre not going for a professional degree, dont go to college (Brockway). Since he speaks in his own tone, he includes a few curse words. He talks about a survey where he admits that the people in the survey had jobs. Brockway isnt afraid to put out what he thinks and says it, so that his readers will open their ears and eyes to get the actual truth. Brockway uses a lot of logos examples to get his point across with a few expressions to make the article more interesting rather than straight facts and statistics.

Opfell 2 The article Dont Think College is Worth It? Ask People Who Havent Gone, by New York Times has a more professional look and description compared to the article from Cracked. The article starts off by explaining about data that shows college graduates generally do not regret going to college. New York Times takes opinions from recent graduates that say they would need more education if they were to have a successful career, to show what they believe on the stance on higher education. A chart was used in the article asking students Did you think you would go to college? (Rampell). The table would include a percentage of those who chose definitely would, probably would and etc. to races of White, Black and Hispanic. This would help show what different races mindsets were on this topic in higher education. The rhetors in both articles are trying to achieve the goal to allow readers to have an expanded mind on the topic if a college degrees value is as great as it seems and if it guarantees success in todays economy. The rhetor in the article by Cracked speaks in a more humorous way to appeal to more readers of the younger generation. The rhetor also used a personal style in his article which influenced the discourse on how the language was used. In the New York Times article, the rhetor displayed and talked about the information on college degrees more professionally than the author in Cracked. Both articles are similar because they both shared information on the high education topic about the value of college degrees and if it worth it. New York Times and Cracked both used information and statistics in the articles to showcase the percentage and amount in finance to show how much students pay for school and how much they will earn with the college degree once they enter the workforce. Included in both the articles was information on how much more

Opfell 3 graduates with a college degree will absolutely make more than a student with a high school diploma (Rampell). The information presented in the articles was straight to the point to answer the question if its worth it to go to college or not backed up with research and studies on the topic. The articles differed because mainly on how the language was presented and the order that the information was organized. The article in Cracked repeated its information a lot which made it long. Photos of movies along with quotes were included in the article to relate to the topic and information (Brockway). He wasnt afraid to say what he wanted to say. A major difference between the articles is that Cracked was more organized and written from a more personal stand point with humor to be more interesting to the readers. New York Times has a reputation to be known as a professional news outlet, therefore the information was more strictly facts and statistics which kept the professional look throughout the article. Tone is very important and significant to analyze in articles. The tones for the articles by New York Times and Cracked are very different. The author for the article The Question Youre Not Asking: Should You Go To College? had a tone that is supposed to make the readers laugh and has the quality that sounds like a conversational tone. The author jokes a lot and phrases his sentences such as Hard Math 701 to over exaggerate the typical things that college students may make as choices when choosing classes for a degree that might not really work out in the end. The tone in New York Times Dont Think College Is Worth It? Ask People Who Havent Gone, is professional. The author, Catherine Rampell, focuses on the races that can affect the percentage of those who will attend college. She talks as if she respects

Opfell 4 all races and doesnt side with a certain race since she is displaying information on different races to get a more accurate result. The article in New York Times is more straight to the point when getting its information across, but the information in Cracked tends to get irrelevant to the topic if a college degree is worth it since the author tries to make a lot of his sentences humorous. The intended audience for these articles was mainly for students who plan on going to college. Since the data collected in the articles were focused on graduates looking for jobs and those who are wanting to receive a college degree, it would attract those who plan on doing the same. Unintended audiences were those who were actually mentioned in Crackeds article on those who are looking for a degree in the various areas such as science, business and more. The writers for the New York Times and Cracked articles brought tone, language and formality to their writing. They both wrote their articles that were basic enough for any reader to enjoy the articles without having to really study complex language and writing. Both media outlets received their information, facts and statistics through research and various interviews that were specific to their reports and findings. The articles thoroughly explained the importance and factors that are dealt with college degrees in this higher education topic. The intended message from these articles was to explain and answer the question if college is worth it and to give their reasons with statistics and actual facts to allow the reader to see what is really going on that is dealt with in higher education.

Opfell 5 Works Cited

Brockway, Robert. "The Question You're Not Asking: Should You Go To College?"Cracked.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013. Rampell, Catherine. "Dont Think College Is Worth It? Ask People Who Havent Gone."Economix Dont Think College Is Worth It Ask People Who Havent Gone Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.