access to higher education

Argument Essay prepared for
ACBE100: Academic Communication in Business and Economics
Lecturer: Vani Bardetta

Access to higher education

Prepared by Liu zixuan
Student ID: LIZID1302
Group 8
Wednesday, 28 August, 2013 Word Count = 1,011 (Should it be the responsibility of the government to ensure that all SES students have access to higher education?)

Obtaining an advanced degree is increasingly significant for many employees especially of them working for major corporations. However, the fact is that opportunities of accessing to higher education are unequal (Argy 2007). Students from low-income backgrounds lack of support to commence university. For this reason, it has become a focus of the whole society that how to improve low-SES school students to access to higher education. There are two opposing views aim at solving the problem of enrolling impoverished university students. The first view is a drift towards that it should be the responsibility of the government to increase subsidization to ensure all SES students accessing to higher education. In addition, it is necessary that government should continue not only improving indexation of university funding but also aid financially more projects (Australia government 2013). At the same time, a second recommendation is that supporting disadvantaged students needs the joint efforts of parents, universities and the whole society.

Indisputably, government should be responsible for all SES students’ education, in particular pay more attention to low-SES students. From this argument, the reasons of that mainly as follows: it can improve the healthy development of the economy, contributes to advance the efficiency of the labor market and foster students funding program of banks or companies.The funding of government is not only for encouraging low-SES students accessing to higher education but also for the society at large. The purpose of government is mainly due to the pragmatic factor. Pragmatically, there is a positive influence for improving the health of economy development and economic outcomes. Government could align with labor market requires to focus on key disciplines and develop individuals. Additionally, individuals with good educational background can reduce efficiently crime rate and negative outcomes (Pitman 2012). The second reason for governments to support low-SES students to access to senior education is that the efficiency of the labor market can be increased dramatically (Argy 2007). Even at the rapid changes in technology today, the gap between labor market needs and personal quality which society can provide is still tremendously huge. Furthermore, subsidizing charitable organizations and support the students funding programs are valid methods for government. The general approach for government is accessing capital funding required to renew infrastructure of universities (Australia government 2013). In conclusion, it is necessary that governments shoulder the burden of making low-SES students access to higher education and providing assistance to education organization.

The arguments supporting help low-SES student should avoid relying utterly on government are varied but contain three main aspects: promoting engagement with others and the expectation of parents, applying scholarship from university and obtaining student loan.

The first aspect is promoting engagement with others and building expectations of parents. If we asked low-SES students in universities what supported them to access to higher education, the most common answer mentioned is the engagement with others. It is a crucial contribution to helping low socio-economic status students that offering resource and gearing up student-to-student mentoring programs (Devlin 2012). In this way, students have more opportunities to exchange study experience with peers. On the other hand, students can be influenced obviously by the elders. It is an important element that there are family members who have experienced higher education (Cairnduff 2009). Parents are helpful for cultivating the study interest of children and kindling their desire for further study. The children of family with higher education background will be easier to gain support from their parents to go to university. The second argument for supporting help low-SES student should not rely entirely on government is that students can apply scholarship from university. There are numerous advantages of scholarship for students. Scholarships can assure that everyone no matter what socio-economic state they have has an equal chance to gain a degree (American.edu 2013). Moreover, scholarships can help poor students to pay for their relative essentials such as textbooks even including the cost of accommodation and transportation (The University of Newcastle 2013). Also, the universities awarding with scholarship to outstanding students can encourage impoverished students studying hard. Finally, scholarship is beneficial for student decreasing economic burden and devoting themselves to sphere of learning.

The third point will be mentioned is that student loan can reduce efficiently the burden of government funding. The biggest benefit of student loan is that students do not need repay until they graduated from the university and landed a good job (Leung 2013). Sometimes, the companies which made loan could offer employment opportunities for impoverished students. The second bonus of student loan is that can really assist most of impoverished students in concentrating on study instead of paying attention to tuition (Leung 2013). Another advantage is the subsidized interest (Wallick 2011), which means the interest will not be accumulated during the loaning period. Thus that can help students save a large chunk of money.

Therefore, the influence of others, the supporting from university and banks play significant roles in making low-SES student access to higher education. Because of that, helping disadvantaged students needs multipronged effort of the society at large.

In summary, this paper has described the two views of the problem that whether it should be the responsibility of the government to ensure that all SES students accessing to higher education or not. And the supporting arguments list the reasonable causes of government should take charge of that. In contrast, the opposing arguments focus on setting the power of the whole society to address this problem. Therefore, government funding is most directly way to help and to encourage low-SES accessing to higher education, but solving this problem still requires the efforts of the whole society.
References

Argy, F 2007, Education inequalities in Australia, viewed 27 August 2013,

Australia government 2013, Funding Programs, viewed 27 August 2013,
<
http://www.innovation.gov.au/highereducation/Funding/Pages/default.aspx>

Australia government 2013, Better Universities Renewal Funding Home, viewed 27 August 2013,

Cairnduff, A 2009, improving low-SES school students’ access to higher education, viewed 27 August 2013,
<
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/leader/improving_low-ses_school_students_access_to_highe,26507.html?issueID=11710>

Devlin, M 2012, Practical help for the disadvantaged, viewed 27 August 2013,

Leung, J 2013, the Advantages of Student Loans, viewed 27 August 2013,
<
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/142881/student_loans/the_advantages_of_student_loans.html>

Pitman, T 2012, A low target: enrolling poor uni students remains a challenge, viewed 27 August 2013,
<
https://theconversation.com/a-low-target-enrolling-poor-uni-students-remains-a-challenge-10297>

The University of Newcastle 2013, University of Newcastle Scholarships, viewed 27 August 2013,

Wallick, SH 2011, First Person: The 10 Advantages of Federal Student Loans, Viewed 27 August 2013,
<
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-person-10-advantages-federal-student-loans-183000503.html>