Nikki Goldstein
College Tuition
Visual Arguments
My image to the left is a college student "hungry for lower tuition". The image can send a broad message of college students needing lower tuition because that itself is no longer affordable. The deeper meaning within the picture is that college student is actually standing outside a charity food drive, which apparently had a large turnout of college students. Because they are spending so much money on college they cannot even afford to eat sometimes, because all of their money is going towards college. The original image was actually different colors, I made it the neon that it is and changed the letters on his poster. I also added the two phrases on the left and right of the bold I'M HUNGRY on the poster. I put the two phrases on the poster to emphasize the importance and add more for the viewer to sympathize with. The one says "Afford to eat.. Or afford to learn???" and the next says "Don't make us choose!” I think adding these helped fill the plainness of the poster the way it was before I edited it as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1MO61l1BM4
The video that I chose brought up the American dream, and how going to college is a part of this American dream. It went on the display the costs of tuition and high debt levels for schools around the United States, the mass difference between in and out of state tuition and highlights college as a business, which we don’t normally think of. It brings up the issue of the interest rates on our loans that we don’t notice now, but will once we graduate and have to actually pay our debt. I really liked how the video displayed education as a commodity, questioning when it became that way and how. The video goes on to give different examples of people who can’t afford college for whichever reason and then highlights our parents as the ones who carry the burden as well, causing changes in their retirement plans. It also highlights that there has been an 845 percent increase in what we pay in the last 30 years and that 6 out of 10 Americans in debt, and we wonder why. The video played the song Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve in the background, which in my opinion makes the video even more effective than possibly having just the slides of all the information in it. If you can’t catch them the beginning lyrics to the song are:
“'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life. Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die. Try to make ends meet. I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down. You're a slave to money then you die.”
The song definitely helps make the point of college debt needing to be decreased and there needs to be a solution found. The only things I would change about the video would be to add more pictures, and slow down the text slides to be more effective in letting the reader have more time to get the whole slide read. Overall though this video is a great support for my topic, and after thinking I wouldn’t be able to find it again, I’m very glad I did! Both of the visual arguments I found make the viewer think and evaluate what the problem is and help in making people aware that something needs to be done about it, which I think is really important.
The video that I chose brought up the American dream, and how going to college is a part of this American dream. It went on the display the costs of tuition and high debt levels for schools around the United States, the mass difference between in and out of state tuition and highlights college as a business, which we don’t normally think of. It brings up the issue of the interest rates on our loans that we don’t notice now, but will once we graduate and have to actually pay our debt. I really liked how the video displayed education as a commodity, questioning when it became that way and how. The video goes on to give different examples of people who can’t afford college for whichever reason and then highlights our parents as the ones who carry the burden as well, causing changes in their retirement plans. It also highlights that there has been an 845 percent increase in what we pay in the last 30 years and that 6 out of 10 Americans in debt, and we wonder why. The video played the song Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve in the background, which in my opinion makes the video even more effective than possibly having just the slides of all the information in it. If you can’t catch them the beginning lyrics to the song are:
“'Cause it's a bittersweet symphony, this life. Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die. Try to make ends meet. I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down. You're a slave to money then you die.”
The song definitely helps make the point of college debt needing to be decreased and there needs to be a solution found. The only things I would change about the video would be to add more pictures, and slow down the text slides to be more effective in letting the reader have more time to get the whole slide read. Overall though this video is a great support for my topic, and after thinking I wouldn’t be able to find it again, I’m very glad I did! Both of the visual arguments I found make the viewer think and evaluate what the problem is and help in making people aware that something needs to be done about it, which I think is really important.
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