The Cost and Returns of Pursuing a College Degree

Abstract

Reading Assignment 2 [University] Costs of going to college based on Conley include direct costs like tuition, fees, room and board for the period one is to be at college and the indirect costs as those connected to amount of time one devotes to school (Pg, 8). Such costs implies that choosing full-time school over full-time work immediately after high school may prove a loss as one would make so much in four years as total wage without incurring education pressures. On the other hand, return of going to college remains coined around the college degree as it defines better pay in any job opportunity (Pg, 9). Although the high-school leaver will have worked four years prior the college/university graduate, by retire time the graduate will have earned significantly higher than the high school worker thus the need to acquire college degree. What is social institution and how does it relate to identity? Social institution can be defined as any institution be it college, university, vocational center or any other institution within a society that works towards shaping the behavior of individuals or groups within it. Social institutions relate to identity based on the sum of total stories about them that people narrate from one person to the other. What those within and those who have been into these social institutions say about them develop a certain image that such institutions identify with and altering with such an identity proves a challenge. Who was August Comte and how did sociology develop as a discipline? August Comte was a French scholar that invented social physics or positivism (Pg, 15). During this invention era, Comte noted the need to make moral sense of the social order since religious authority was declining. To this effect, Comte argued that sociologists could determine the right and wrong without referring to higher powers or other religious concepts thus paving way for sociology development as a discipline. How did Karl Marx see history? What was Karl Marx’s view of society? Karl Marx is among the most famous sociologist with his surname Marxism standing out as an ideological alternative to capitalism. As a historian, Marx did more than just chronicle events elaborating theory of what drives history which current generation refers to as historical materialism. This great historian saw history from the perspective of a man’s struggle to gain control of and later use such powers to dominate his natural environment. Unfortunately such struggles led men not to enjoy technological privileges and instead became slaves to such industrial technology in-order to make a living. Basically Karl saw history as a version where each economic system has its own fault lines of conflicts (Pg, 23). Karl further viewed these fault lines from the society point of view arguing that fault line divided society into small number of capitalism and large number of workers whose interests were opposed. Society from this perspective became favorable to the potentially able and undeserving to the vulnerable as expressed from Karl’s known phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” (Pg, 24). What is the division of labor according to Emile Durkheim? What made Durkheim’s work sociology and not economics? Durkheim defined division of labor as the degree of job specialization. What does this imply? It means that within a society jobs may become specialized based on the class of people within such a society. For instance, low division of labor for hunter-gatherers and high division of labor for qualified professionals. Durkheim argued and substantiated his arguments through legal evidence making his work more sociological than economics. While applying this concept, this sociologist was able to confirm that the division of labor not only affected work and productivity but also contributed to some social and moral consequences. What did Durkheim conclude about suicide? What is anomie? While arguing about suicidal act, Durkheim confirmed that social forces condition this act. Basically his argument revolves around the extent to which humans remain integrated into group life as well as the degree to which such human’s life follow routines. The sense of normlessness...