Is college a worthwhile expenditure

Introduction
College fees are becoming more and more expensive globally. To some families it has become a luxury which is hard to afford easily. Education is the single largest expenditure for American families and government, accounting for 30 percent of state and local governments allotted budgets (Tyler). Of the total education spending, according to the White House statistics in 2014, forty percent is spent on higher education -- about $386 billion per year. 
As far as I am concerned, allocating such a significant portion of family and government budget to college education is a worthwhile activity. Post-secondary education is a valuable investment in human capital that has beneficial outcomes for individuals as well as for society at large. Ideally, college education should contribute to personal advance and social development.
Beyond cultivating professional Skills
First of all, one of the vital benefits colleges could bring is talent cultivating through its fundamental function--education. Different colleges place different level of emphasis on professional education patterns. 
The practice that emphasizes professional education and overlooks the general education makes students have a narrow scope of knowledge (William). The neglect of ability education and morality education often leads the colleges cultivating so-called talents with high marks but low capacity and poor quality. And that is a problem where varieties of colleges are confronted with. If obtaining a higher education degree is associated with such considerable benefits, why is it that only 57 percent of adults believe a college education is a good investment (Crossfire)? According to IHEP’s recent findings, people often perceive college affordability to be worse than it really is: “People believe that published prices are higher than they actually are and many students and families are unaware of the magnitude of the grant aid and tax credits available to them.” (Daniel). These misconceptions lead to many people overestimating the cost of obtaining a college degree. Therefore the statistics of people’s opinions towards higher education cannot prove that college is not a worthwhile expenditure.
Some universities excessively pay attention to vocational education and cultivate talents-blue collars and white collars that enterprises and factories need in the society (Judith 2013). It is a kind of behavior which deviates from the goals of college education and makes college education lose its meaning in the essence. With the rapid development of economic society and scientific technology, society demands much more than technical workers. Though the state gradually increases investment on college education, the disjoint between education and society has become more evident (Crossfire). At the same time, many enterprises are facing a shortage of staff, complaining that they can’t recruit outstanding business talents. Facing with this result, we should ponder, is it as a result of poor college education or other reasons. 
However, some people start to question college education now. The reasons are various. In the case of the development of present colleges, only a small number of them are qualified to train elites. Elite-training cannot be accomplished overnight, but needs long term effort from institutions of higher education. Otherwise, the over emphasis of elite education will slow down the development of colleges, and elite education has become a formality without achieving the standard. There is a tendency of putting too much emphasis on the elite-training without consideration of each individual situation (Crossfire). Improving the level and becoming research universities have become a tendency that some universities run after blindly. They can’t achieve the goal with their basis and conditions in the short run, and it makes the goal of cultivating students unclear, so the undergraduates are experiencing employment difficulty: on one hand they are not qualified for highly salaried jobs, and on the other hand they are not willing to accept those lower level posts.
Undoubtedly, the number of college students is increasing yearly despite the increasing tuition fees, which are clearly a burden for low-income families (William). Educational investment such as time and money seems to have given sufficient proof to the value of college education. Yet, it is feared that education, or at least college education, is devaluating.
The claim can be justified only in a narrow sense. It is true that college graduates are experiencing trouble landing decent jobs and that the financial return of the investment in college education seems to be declining. A criticism often heard these days is that the subjects taught in schools tend to be too academic, and contribute little to preparing a young person for the real-life tasks (Charles). It is also said that many students play truant regularly and only cram before final exams. Many researches indicate some students attend a university only to get a degree or even to have a good time. Yet, all these are simply are the students’ own fault or result of poor education quality. A good college education is always invaluable.
Encourage and develop self-interests
College is a place where one can pursue his own interests. By talking, sharing and cooperating with one’s peers and teachers, one gets inspired and acquires a different perspective. College education can bring personal improvement in ways other than scholastic achievement. Therefore, instead of losing its value, education will become essential foundation in a complicated and changeable world.
As has been noted above, colleges are now facing the problem of how to efficiently utilize their resources to serve the students who are more culturally and socially diversified. To solve the problem, colleges should be specifically aware of their main tasks. On the one hand, college should provide students with easy access to knowledge and. On the other hand, college should encourage them to make active contribution to the advancement of human knowledge. 
Colleges should be learning communities where knowledge is not only disseminated but also advanced. As full-fledged members of this community, students should not be information recipients who learn the knowledge in a passive way. Instead, they should be challenged to achieve their potential and, indeed, to excel. Therefore, rather than focusing merely on knowledge dissemination and transfer, colleges should contrive to provide learning conditions that encourage students to remain curious (Charles). It is also necessary to value diversity in opinions and perspectives, and to think critically and communicate effectively. Those colleges that do not fulfill people’s expectation in encouraging and developing interest are more likely to be taken as less worthy.
Dynamism and Pluralism
Furthermore, colleges will never attain their goals if they tailor all their courses or programs to meet the needs of specific employers or occupational sectors. Today’s social environment is more dynamic and turbulent than ever before. Only those graduates who possess certain personality traits and matches diversified situations can distinguish themselves from others.
In order to fulfill the main tasks of colleges, college education should contain amplifying opportunities for independent learning among students (Yojana). This way college education can get them prepared for the changing society. Students can learn to exercise their autonomy more effectively, and they may clarify their own interests while learning in an independent way.
To achieve personal growth and success, one needs to control in-depth knowledge in a certain discipline. Every branch of knowledge is worth pursuing provided that you don’t merely scratch the surface. No real interest can be fostered by just dipping into a subject. Without interest, learning becomes not a pleasure, but a burden to be endured for the sake of getting a diploma. To really develop one’s abilities, one needs to focus on his or her majors. A quantity of times and energies are required to pursue a discipline or perfect a skill. It is also essential to have a general knowledge of relevant subjects because many disciplines are interrelated. 
To promote social progress, colleges need to provide moral and ethical education. The development of a society calls for genuine cooperation and harmony among its people. No society can develop well if all its citizens are engaged in a rat race for personal interests without regard for each other (Charles). With a decaying of moral and ethical standard, people start to scramble for their personal gains at all cost. Fraud, bribery and corruption become rampant. Therefore, people need to be educated morally, ethically and psychologically. College is an important period for one’s lifelong journey, and its importance can be hardly exaggerated. As things stand now, there is always room for improvement. A well-balanced education will be most conducive to individual and social progress.
State officials and general public have been pondering the pros and cons of relying solely on the government for the funding of college without reaching any definite conclusion (Crossfire). In my opinion, we should contrive to achieve an appropriate balance of government and social funding for college education. 
The cost of education should be balanced between the individual and government. Education drives progress toward a better life both personally and collectively. One of the most important outcomes of education is learning how to learn continuously. Well-educated individuals are not only prepared for well-paying jobs, but they can also cope with changes. When a country undergoes change and growth, it relies on the existence of civilized citizens to lead the social and economic development. Without a large number of well-educated people in country, the collective capacity to grow would be severely diminished.
To sum up, the cost of college should be distributed between the government and the citizens. What is of ultimate importance is that the government should make this decision thoughtfully and ensure that the proportion is appropriate.
Obviously, college education caters to personal needs with a clear objective. An ideal college education should be one where students can be sharpened in the way of creativity, social and civic commitment, a global perspective. Only when they are so directed be they able to compete well in the globalization process, and be more open-minded. They can work with a firm belief instead of isolating themselves in a confined world. 
The college education should be the result of the joint effort of students and the teaching staff and the society. Only when all the resources are put into full play can college education be satisfying. It’s a collaborative affair, not merely relying on some experts. College should increase the quality of the students and make greater efforts to cultivate culture awareness. Higher education also should pay much attention to the cultivation of students’ practical operation. College can provide more opportunities and platform for the students, and give the students more encouragement and the room for creativity. 
In any case, although present college education has some problems, investing in higher education is the best bet an individual can make. College education can secures one’s place in the workforce and actualize one's earning potential. By comparing the costs and benefits of higher education, it becomes explicitly clear that college is in fact a worthwhile investment.

Reference
CNN News. Crossfire: Is college worth it? 22 August 2013. Web
http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/08/22/exp-tsr-crossfire-supp-cutter-college.cnn.html?iref=allsearch
Judith Burns. Bring back polytechnics, argues higher education report.BBC news. 9 June 2013. Web.
http://www.bbc.com/news/education-22818497
Muscatine, Charles. Fixing College Education: A New Curriculum for the Twenty-first Century. University of Virginia Press. 2009. Print.
http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780813928326
Sharma, Yojana. What do you do with millions of extra graduates? BBC news.1 July 2014. Web.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28062071
Shoag, Daniel. The Impact of Government Spending Shocks: Evidence on the Multiplier from State Pension Plan Returns. Harvard University. 2010. Web.
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/dshoag/Documents/shoag_jmp.pdf
The White House. Making College More Affordable. 2014. Web.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education#college-affordability
Tyler Kingkade. State Education Spending Still Lower Than In 2008: Report. The Huffington Post. 28 May 2013.Web.
http://www.huffin gtonpost.com/2013/05/28/state-education-spending-report_n_3348097.html
William J. Bennett. Do we need a revolution in higher education? CNN News. 13 June 2012. Web.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/13/opinion/bennett-higher-education/index.html?iref=allsearch

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