In Louis Menand’s “Live and Learn: Why We Have College,” the author discussed the utility of a college education, and the different functions and expectations colleges have of its students. While there is not a lot of quantitative evidence used, it is tangential to his overall argument, which was emotional and pluralistic in nature. In essence, Menand believed there are two equally valid uses for education, encapsulated in two theories: one in which college is a gateway to a future career and financial rewards, and one where college is meant to be an avenue for learning and bettering oneself as a learner and scholar. Menand effectively argued that college is both of these things at once, depending on who subscribes to which theory. In telling this tale, Menand made his arguments largely through qualitative evidence and anecdote, though he brings in expert testimony and precedent as well to make his argument.
Menand used a great deal of personal testimony and qualitative evidence in the framing of his argument. The vast majority of the essay was written from his perspective, using first person narrative to talk about his tenure as a professor of an Ivy League university in the introduction. In particular, he wrote about the reframing of college’s value from an academic perspective to a monetary one – students are becoming increasingly concerned, argued Menand, with how cheaply to go to college and what to get it: “In a society that encourages its members to pursue the career paths that promise the greatest personal or financial rewards, people will, given a choice, learn only what they need to know for success” (Menand 2011, p. 74). He did expose himself at the very end of the essay as a “Theory 2 person”, meaning he believed college’s main value is in academic knowledge and liberal arts training – i.e. teaching people how to think (p. 78). By establishing his credibility and history with the subject, Menand convinced the audience to trust his judgment. Menand’s writing style follwed this first person perspective, becoming informal and approachable, with an air of authority. Through his own first-person perspective, Menand also introduced precedent as a tool for his thoughts on college. The reliance on assessment tests like the ACT and the SAT were outlined by Menand as products of the Ivy League system in the late 1940s, back when college was a “limited social resource” that was only afforded to the privileged.
Despite claiming his expertise, Menand also called upon other experts to help make his points. First of all, sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa are cited as writing a book called “Academically Adrift”, which seeks to cultivate a sense of real learning in the subjects colleges are educating them in – focusing on the second theory of colleges being an academic institution (pp. 75-76). While Menand focused on their perspective, he never took it as his own, pinning their own cynicism toward the profit-based college theory on the authors themselves. While he was interested in the results of their studies, Menand always provided a degree of objectivity in his approach to the two theories, allowing the argument for pluralism to be clearly stated. Menand also mentioned Professor X, the anonymous name of an educator who wrote an article. Menand seemed to take a dim view of Professor X’s writing, calling it “too vague to be engaging” (p. 76), but noted his perspective that students are simply run through the meat grinder of higher education, unprepared for the real world and learning nothing compared to what they are paying. Menand compared Professor X’s more practical but cynical view to Arum and Roksa’s more optimistic views on education, ostensibly having a better view about the latter while not truly taking a position on the former (he notes that X is a bit of a misogynist tied up in “old-fashioned” pedagogy, but his concerns are valid) (p. 78). By comparing these two sets of experts, Menand wished to represent both sides of the argument that college’s main utility is either as an academic or economic boon.
While the vast majority of Menand’s arguments were personal or anecdotal, there was some usage of hard facts in making his arguments. When discussing the selectivity of Ivy League colleges, he notes specific acceptance rates at Cambridge and Oxford to show how much more selective Oxford is. He also notes that there were 1.14 million students in public and private colleges apiece in 1950 (p. 75). Statistics were also provided to show how omnipresent college degrees and overstuffed college programs are now, to prove that public colleges provide a gateway for nearly anyone to get a college degree. With the help of these quantitative data points and statistics, Menand sought to show definitively that colleges are increasing in ubiquity, which leads to this more economically-minded perspective. Menand never cited these statistics, but they are inserted into his otherwise informal prose to convey his subjective points with some objectivity – the essay’s status as an editorial reduced his responsibility to provide formally cited references.
Menand’s overall structure in the essay mixed these different types of arguments in a way that merely explored the questions without providing a concrete answer (which Menand never claims exists anyway). Dealing with the two theories in relation to each other, Memand started off with his appeal to authority by telling his own anecdotes of his time as a professor – including the question one student asks, “Why did we have to buy this book?” (p. 74). This question, for Menand, summed up the heart of the conflict between monetary value vs. academic value in college, and is the spring board for his arguments. Then, he summarized the theories so that the audience was familiar with them, following that up with the historical perspective on higher education (which was strictly elite and academic until public schools made college more of a moneyed concern for a growing populace). Menand then discussed the Arum and Roksa text and the Professor X text, as well as their approaches as authors, to give a comprehensive expert testimony from each side of the argument. Finally, Menand synthesized this perspective by bringing it back to the student’s original question in light of the knowledge he has just provided. With this structure, Menand sought to involve readers emotionally in the arguments about the college experience, and systematically provide varying types of support to explore his pluralistic argument, ending again with the emotional appeal.
Menand’s essay uses a wide variety of rhetorical devices and sources of argument to make the point that college has now changed into an open-ended debate regarding its utility. Students are now forced, according to Menand, to choose what they really want out of higher education – the possibility for a profitable job without incurring much debt, or the academic knowledge and betterment of self that comes with a liberal arts education. According to Menand, the increase in popularity of public schools and student loans has made people more conscious of who deserves to go to college: “We want higher education to be available to all Americans, but we also want people to deserve the grades they receive” (Menand 2011, p. 75). By showing the historical precedent, the objective quantitative and qualitative data, and using expert testimony and personal experience to round out the varying pieces of the argument, Menand showcases a look into the college experience that does not settle on a solution one way or the other.
References
Menand, L. (2011 June 6). Why we have college. The New Yorker, pp. 74-79.
