Rhetorical Analysis of Robert Farrington’s “Community College Is Not the Answer” Most college students who attend community college as a stepping stone towards achieving a bachelor’s degree at a university commonly fall short of this intention. Only 11. 6% out of 81. 4% of these community college students accomplish a bachelor’s degree at a university. Discovering this compelling fact was discouraging as a community college student desiring to pursue a biochemistry degree at a four-year institution.
Financially, college students are saving more money in attending a community college their first few years in place of a university. President Obama proposed the idea of ‘free community college’ to improve the wages and living standards of the middle class. As a community college student, I wonder if this proposal would improve this startling statistic and aid the student’s desire to pursue their educational goals. In Robert Farrington’s article “Community College Is Not the Answer,” Farrington portrays blunt opinions specified for a Forbes audience.
Robert Farrington, a contributor in college personal finance, in “Free Community College is Not the Answer” demonstrates a different approach to spending money on education than providing free community college. The article was published electronically on a multimedia website known as Forbes. Portrayed as a money and lifestyle magazine, Forbes is targeted to a limited audience of wealthy individuals. This was a sensible approach to publish in the Forbes magazine because Farrington had made his appeal to an audience of wealthy, higher-class individuals.
Farrington began with two reasons why students attend community college: high school graduates exploring what career path they intend to study or people in the workforce desiring to improve their career skills. According to this article, high school graduates are wasting their time and money by attending a community college. Community college graduates have a worthless degree in today’s work force due to obtaining a two year associates degree. Attending a community college is less impressive than the four-year establishment.
For workers, this schooling option is great to excel in their careers and often employers offer to help with the community college costs, which are very inexpensive. Farrington then presents the lack of benefits of ‘free community college’ through a statistic stating most of these students drop out of community college and have a 22% graduation rate. Students tend to not attend a community college because they cannot understand the purpose. Farrington believes the money provided should be spent on high schools and elementary schools to form a better college preparatory education.
The information presented in this article appealed to pathos due to the strong opinionated appeal by Farrington with his personal opinions. This tactic created a rift in appeal, as it lacked appropriate evidence to back up his remarks. Without evidence to support his opinionated appeal to pathos, Farrington fell short in his use of logos and ethos. Farrington carried low ethos throughout the entire piece. Robert Farrington has a Masters Degree in Political Science, not education. His lack of experience to the educational system was apparent throughout his bantering of community college.
Furthermore, his argument started to crumble with a little known fact—he never attended community college. Farrington has no first-hand experience to the ideology of community college, which creates a poorly constructed argument. With his inadequate credibility, Farrington published the article in the educational section of Forbes where the biased argument against community college was apparent. As stated “Opinions by Forbes Contributors are their own,” Farrington used a biased and opinionated argument to convince the readers. In doing so, he turned off readers from agreeing with his argument or even contemplating it.
In the beginning of the article, President Obama’s remark about free community colleges was stated. President Obama’s idea was not expanded on by Farrington; he neglected to explain how the money spent on community colleges could be used for better intentions in specific detail. This piece lacked first hand accounts of the com nunity college education system and prominent supports for and against creating free community college education. By being so heavily biased to the opposing argument, Farrington creates unneeded tension between himself and prospective moderate readers.
Farrington opted to use one piece of statistical evidence throughout his entire argument. One of which was biased to the opposing argument. The statistical evidence on the graduation rate of community college is easily refuted by an informed reader. For example, the graduation rate shouldn’t be the basis of an argument when most community students transfer to four year institutions following a guaranteed transfer plan rather than a degree from the community college. Logistical evidence needed to be incorporated by Farrington to explain the pros and cons of the community college education system.
Statistics relating to the expenses of community colleges to taxpayers would create a better argument that readers could relate to from both sides. The use of Farrington’s opinionated remarks constituted most of the article by creating a slight persuasive appeal to emotion. Students enrolled at community college are lost high school graduates and employees seeking to gain certain skills is the minor persuasiveness found in the argument. This statement is persuasive due to the audience of a select few higher class individuals, whom probably never attended community college.
Farrington opens the readers to categorize community college students within these two stereotypes. The lack of morals demonstrated in his approach to stereotyping, reveals an hominem fallacy. The biased tactic of bullying to get his way leaves readers disgusted by Farrington’s stereotypical remarks. More or less, Farrington unsuccessfully argued his way into an abysmal ending with his personal attacks. If personal accounts of students continuing towards a university but were confined by financial obligations was stated, a more intelligent, unbiased argument could have been made.
Free Community College” fell short in every aspect of an argumentative piece. Somehow Farrington, within his rambling, forgot many aspects of a argumentative rhetoric and the basis of a neutral platform for the argument. The un-stylistic and indecent approach to his argument would leave most readers turned off from the article once they delved into the second paragraph. Farrington needs to create a basis of neutrality on the issue and incorporate meaningful statistics and personal accounts to create a convincing argument against the community college education system.
