Unit 3: Vocabulary from Readings 2

You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

A degree from a prestigious university can open doors to elite business schools and law schools—and to jobs paying hundreds of thousands, if not millions, a year.

So parents who can afford it are paying grotesque sums to give their kids an edge.

They make generous contributions to the elite colleges they once attended, to which their kids are applying—colleges that give extra points to “legacies” and even more to those from wealthy families that donate tons of money. You might call this affirmative action for the rich.

They make generous contributions to the elite colleges they once attended, to which their kids are applying—colleges that give extra points to “legacies” and even more to those from wealthy families that donate tons of money. You might call this affirmative action for the rich.

The same intensifying competition is affecting mid-range colleges and universities that are doing everything they can to burnish their own brands— competing with other mid-range institutions to enlarge their applicant pools, attract good students, and inch upward on the U.S. News college rankings.

For example, the emerging economy will need platoons of technicians able to install, service, and repair all the high-tech machinery filling up hospitals, offices, and factories.

Community colleges—the under-appreciated crown jewels of America’s feeble attempts at equal opportunity—could be developing these curricula.

The economic return on investment for a college degree has never been higher. But the more that fact is discussed, the more some pundits seem to think the US is at risk of an epidemic of unnecessary college-going that can be averted by singing the praises of highly skilled trades.

Though the cost of college is increasing, a variety of empirical evidence suggests that the earnings associated with a bachelor’s degree still trump the debt that students incur in most cases.

While unemployment rates for new grads and experienced workers alike have fluctuated throughout the recession and recovery, the earnings premium that college– and advanced-degree holders enjoy over their peers who didn’t attend college has remained relatively stable, and in some instances, grown, according to the report that was released this week.