The value of a college education is an important issue for many people, both young and old. Charles Dorn’s piece, “What is College Good For?” is an argumentative article that aims to elaborate a series goods that an individual can be seen to accrue as a result of such an education.. Throughout his article, Dorn uses a variety of rhetorical strategies in order to comment on the contemporary benefits of college. These arguments succeed as a result of the authority that Dorn inherits through his parents experience of life without a college education, his careful use of inductive reasoning and the pathos of his own parental experience.

Throughout the article, Dorn makes regular use of the authority to question the value of college that stems from his parents’ lack of college education. Dorn begins by insisting that his parents “lived rich lives” and that they “did so without the benefit of higher education” (2017). By beginning his article with personal details that effectively prove that he does not consider a college education to be necessary for a happy, fulfilled life, Dorn allows his argument to appeal to wide-variety of class-backgrounds and immediately establishes himself as a writer who is aware of the danger of an unreflective affirmation of the value of higher education. As well as this, the initial frame of his argument within his parents’ experience enables the conclusion of the article, in which his mother states that she wishes she had had an education that expanded her understanding of the world and her awareness of a responsibility towards others to carry significant rhetorical force, thus showing that his own way of thinking is shared by someone who was previously skeptical.

Another key aspect of Dorn’s rhetorical strategy involves his use of methodical, inductive reasoning. Throughout the piece, he is shown to test his understanding of the value of college against his own experience, as well as the experience of those whom he teaches and those whom he has studied as a part of his research. At one point in the article, Dorn notes that “colleges and universities have historically encouraged students to expand their aspirations in the direction of serving the public good” and relates this directly to the role that higher education has performed with regard to training the clergy. Rather than simply asserting this claim as something that should be a-priori associated with education, Dorn combines historical research with his own experience in order generate a series of claims regarding the value of college, ensuring that such claims are not dismissed as dogmatic.

Finally, Dorn makes use of a significant amount of pathos when describing the importance of the arguments that he is making. Such pathos is brought about, primarily, via reference to his own experiences as a parent. When discussing the importance of the argument that he is making, Dorn writes that he finds himself “agonizing” over the future of his son and suggests that he has “ become my parents as well as all of the other parents questioning the uses and value of college” (2017). Through this statement, Dorn makes clear that the argument he has been attempting to present is not simply academic and that it should rather be understood as something that reflects a deep personal investment in the value of education.

In conclusion, therefore, Dorns’ article may be argued to employ three primary rhetorical techniques. It is important to note, however, that these techniques do not exist in isolation. Rather, they emerge out of, and complement, each other in a manner that enables the article in question to effectively combine personal experience, historical research and a profound emotional investment in its arguments.