Miscellaneous

Free Enterprise

Hi guys!

     Those of you who have been following our blog for a while now would know that some of us are taking Civics/Free Enterprise as a required elective to complete our Louisiana High School Diploma. We have recently finished the Civics part of the course and have now moved on to Free Enterprise. 

     To start off this portion of the course we discussed the meaning of opportunity costs and applied some examples. Opportunity costs can best be described as the cost of missing out on the next best thing. For example, choosing to get out of bed in the morning to go to school would be an opportunity cost because you sacrificed having more sleep for an education. 

     We next looked at an article that discussed whether the benefits of college still outweighed the costs. From my understanding of the article, going to college is still extremely beneficial despite any future road blocks you might face. The author of the article argued their position that college is worth it by including interesting facts, like the unemployment rate for college-educated Americans is half that of Americans with only a High School Diploma. After analyzing the article we came up with some arguments of our own for whether the benefits of college still outweigh the cost. After narrowing it down to one argument for this statement and one against, this is what we came up with:

For: The earning potential of college graduates is significantly higher than that of High School graduates. The article mentioned that the difference is roughly $20,000 in the United States.

Against: The 4 year investment that goes into college can used elsewhere. Speaking in financial terms, the money spent on college could be used to start a business, put a down payment on a house of even buy a new car. There are also years' worth of loans to pay back after graduation as well.

If you are interested in reading the article, click here.

See you next week!

- Sophie F.