You will again practice responding to other people’s ideas in your own writing. This essay helps you develop that skill further as you analyze a writer’s ideas and evaluate the potential impacts of those ideas. As you craft your own argument, you will work on thesis development, organization, revision, and editing.
Required Readings
Prior to writing your essay, you will read and discuss Suzanne Mettler’s Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream.
Background
Our theme for this unit in class is “The Costs and Benefits of Higher Education.” Throughout her book, Mettler explores the politics that built and undermined a dream of providing higher education for everybody. She ultimately provides hope, but the book clearly presents the circumstances that have eroded hope in the past. What do you think the future of college accessibility is? Do you think college can be affordable for everyone? In this essay you will cross-reference future hopes with past challenges to come up with your analysis of Mettler’s ideas.
Writing Task
Write a four to six page essay that responds to the following prompt:
Assess the future of college affordability.
Identify two reforms that could help mitigate the tuition and financial aid crisis, thus making college more affordable, and analyze their potential effectiveness.
Be sure to take into account the past challenges to reform effort and the difficulties of legislative maintenance.
