Rhetorical Analysis
“Top Colleges Are Cheaper Than You Think (Unless You’re Rich)” — Opinion Article written by David Leonhardt
Summary
This NY Times opinion article was wrtitten by David Leonhardt in June of 2018. Leonhardt is a American journalists, who features on the NYTimes weekly, and also publishes daily emails on Opinion Today. In this article, Leonhardt is trying to get the readers to realize college tuition is not exactly as expensive as it may seem. From the very beginning, Leonhardt lures in his readers, just by the title alone. He did so simply by adding “Unless Youre Rich” at the end of his title. According to a survey by Northwestern Mutual, seventy percent of Americans consider themselves to be in the working middle class, which means having an annual income between $24,000 and $72,000. Leonhardt starts off his opinion article with a very detailed graph on total annual college costs, and how much families usually pay based on their annual income. For example, this graph provided by Leonhardt points out that at an elite college where tuition is roughly $60,000, lower class families would pay only about $6,000 per year. Below, I will attach the same exact graph Leonhardt uses in his opinion article.
In this article, Leonhardt explains that the cost of college is a “notoriously complex subject.” Leonhardt explains, “The list price at many private colleges, including tuition, fees, room and board, has reached the bewildering sum of $70,000 a year. But the real price, taking into account financial aid, is often vastly lower.” He then explains his overall main purpose, “How much lower?” referring to how much financial aid is really coming into effect in helping the families in need of it the most.
Persuasive?
In my opinion, Leonhardt is very much persuasive in guiding readers to the actual cost of tuition. He points out that lower income students (whose parents make around $50,000 or less) usually only pay $6,000 in tuition cost a year. Leonhardt also mentioned that this can be easily paid back with a part time job, or a small loan. The Middle class students pay a bit more than lower, and affluent families pay very close to the listed college tuition price. So, according to the graph it is really the upper class families who pay the most of the actual college tuition price. However, Leonhardts article only revolves around thirty private colleges, but what about the rest? Yes, top colleges are usually pricier than public, but with public colleges having more students, does that limit the amount of financial aid that is offered to each student?
Rhetorical Analysis Used
David Leonhardt provided not one, not two, but all three rhetorical techniques in order to persaude his readers into wanting more information on affording college tuition and succeeded.
Pathos is used in the sense that Leonhardt offers an emotional tone, this tone can be either excitement or disappointment to the readers depending on their annual income. Ethos is presented in this article numerous of times. This rhetorical appeal is all about how the reader views the author/publisher, meaning either credible, reliable, trustworthy, etc. and this can be pointed out in many ways throughout this article. Leonhardt appears knowledgable in the sense that he provides loads of information that backs up his opinion. That is where Logos comes into hand. Logos can be viewed in numerous ways as well, however Leonhardt uses this rhetorical analysis when he provided the many graphs and statistics. What really stood out in all graphs, is that he accomodated all family annual incomes, rich or poor to give them a sense as to what they will pay if they have children or what their children will pay when it comes to college tuition.