Education
Education is important, and everyone is seeking opportunities to get higher education since it is believed to be the best way that one can become successful in life. From the reading, “What the brochures don’t tell you,” the brochures of colleges and universities are only for marketing and should not be trusted as such. The author addresses the issue of university and college education, which in reality does not meet the expectations that students or even parents have when they seek such opportunities. It is observed that the adverts that most colleges and universities make, including those that are considered as the most prestigious, do not depict the reality once a student joins such institutions. This is based on the finding that most of what they learn is never taught by the permanent faculty members but rather by tutors who are employed on a contract basis and some even poorly paid.
Furthermore, the life of the tutors or the faculty who work for those institutions is not something that one could admire considering the long hours that they have to put in, yet they are paid very little. The higher learning institutions, including colleges and universities, often charge very high fees from students, but the quality of education that they offer is low. This is because most of the students are taught by what the article refers to adjunct, which is a term that is used for tutors as well as researchers who are not actually employed to work in such institutions as regular faculty members. This is because they only take some classes and can work for different institutions at the same time. This, according to the article, is a practice that is in almost all universities and a reality that they do not tell learners of parents; hence, putting the quality of education at risk.
The main theme of the article whereby universities and colleges only advertise themselves to attract students but do not tell the truth is noted from the interview with Nicole. She was an exemplary student in her studies and managed to complete her MBA in Finance as well as Doctorate in Art history, learning in some of the prestigious institutions. For her, aged 24 years, she was on the right path to success, even with the publications of her curatorial. Nicole started off well, but things changed when they moved to the United States. She first landed a job with a friend, but once the school collapsed, she started working for various institutions, which paid her even less than what she expected. She had to work several jobs, including giving private lessons to add up for her income.
From the experience that Nicole had as an adjunct, this is seen to relate to the main point of the article, which is that colleges and universities do not tell the truth to potential learners and even parents through their brochures. Rather, they tend to paint a picture of stability and a glamorous learning environment for students, which are only seen in the brochures. The institutions focus more on attracting students but will do little to pay permanent employees of faculty members to work at the facilities. Instead, they resort to adjuncts who are paid less and who do not even have enough time to spend with students because even some of them do not have actual offices within the institutions. This is something that puts most students at risk of receiving low quality education because the focus of the institutions is making money rather than providing the required educations services to learners.
Furthermore, from the reading, the one thing that surprised me is the fact that the majority of people who have worked as adjunct have nothing to show for it, considering the minimal wages that they receive. One would expect that since the higher learning institutions charge high fees from the students, they would also equally pay their tutors well and even provide them with benefits that they can depend on in the future. Education is important, and I think that the learning institutions not showing value for the adjuncts is something that is unethical. Also, I think that a formal policy or guideline should be in place that defines how adjuncts can be paid since there seems to be a lack of teachers and researchers paid by the governments or the private institutions.
Finally, I am disappointed by the way institutions of higher learning manage their affairs. Education is the determining factor of the type of workforce that we will have in the future. When leaning institutions focus more on making lots of money rather than hiring talented instructors is something that should be investigated since it means that they do not care about the well-being of the students. Regarding the instructors that they employ, I think that this article changes my perception about them such that I will appreciate them more but also would wish that they get full-time employment to avoid them going through the same predicament as that of Nicole and many other adjuncts.