College: For The Students or Of The Students

David Diaz

“The most subversive question about higher education has always been whether the college makes the student or the student makes the college,” writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times in his article "The College Calculation". Leonhardt then continues in a different direction and proves that the cost of college on average is worth the average salaries earned by college graduates. Leonhardt does not, however, answer the question of whether colleges create the students or whether students create the college.

Leonhardt observes the monetary aspect of attending colleges and concludes that the average debt is worth it when one considers the increased wage that a college graduate receives. Also, Leonhardt says that in this economic depression many people are going back to college because they either have nothing else to do or have lost their jobs. Furthermore, Leonhardt shows that the dropout rate of colleges is roughly fifty percent, which raises the question, are colleges doing their job. However, apart from all of this Leonhardt fails to tackle the question does a college make it’s students or is a college made by its students?

To answer this question, one may use the fact that the nationwide average dropout rate in colleges is fifty percent. With a half of the students not graduating, a college doesn’t create its students or at least one may say that it only does half of the job because only half graduate. At the same time, a college that can drive away half of its students is certainly not made by its students. Because neither of these answers the question, one must remember that a college is a business, it exists to teach, to further knowledge, and most importantly to make money. One may certainly argue that both of these must be present in college and that the relationship between a college and its students is a symbiotic one. That the college does mold the student by education and by placing the student in the culture of the college, but at the same time the body of students define the culture of the college from which they benefit. This is certainly true, but to say that a college is either made by the students or makes the students is ludicrous because money makes the college and money is the motive of the college. Interestingly enough, money is also the motive of many of the students that attend college. The student hopes that by attending college he or she may get a job with better pay than had they not attended college.

The question of whether a college should make a student or a student make the college is an interesting one. Although, both sides must be present in a symbiotic setting for college to have any purpose. However, the question seems ridiculous when one realizes that on average both the college and the student are acting only to make money.