Access and/or barriers to college: is or should college be for everyone? What does one gain, or lose, depending on your answer? (Gee, Fortin, Ungar, Scheuer)

College should be for the ones who feel it is right for them. It isn’t about class (Ungar’s quote to support this). If they don’t go they could be losing access to discourses (Gee and Fortin). The discourses they would lose access to are important, they would lose citizenship (Scheuer) and critical thinking (Maybe I could put a quote from the UNE sites to explain more about the critical thinking and liberal arts thing). Without critical thinking, they can be barred from discourses (Gee and Fortin again). However, those that go to college when they don’t really want to or need to have a possibility of dropping out and losing money (Maybe an Ungar quote about college expenses?) and being unhappy. These are just the basic ideas for this approach but I’m not too sure where I would take this and where to go if I need to take the topics further.

The purpose or value of college: how does going to college promote citizenship, critical thinking, life-long learning, or career? Is one more important than another? How so? (Scheuer, Newstok)

A liberal arts education specifically promotes citizenship, critical thinking, life-long learning, and career through teaching students how to create bridges within advanced skills (Scheuer). A liberal arts education also helps students to assimilate facts, ideas, and conceptual frameworks and develop a critical mind, this promotes citizenship and critical thinking. I think critical thinking would be the most important aspect that college promotes because it can inform the others. Critical thinking provides the “scaffolding” for further inquiry (Newstok). I like the ideas that I have for this approach but I’m kind of stuck on where to go next with it and how these connect and form a bigger picture.