Many people think that getting in to college is the key to life success. There is no doubt that there is a correlation between income and education, but the question remains: Will entry into college guarantee an end to poverty?
In this podcast, EduShyster says that getting into college is not a guarantee of getting ahead. As she shows in this podcast, many young people struggle to get into college, then find themselves burdened with debt and less able to cope with the demands of academic life and working to pay off their debts.
For me, the takeaway is that Bernie Sanders’ proposal to make public college tuition-free makes sense. Higher education should be a right, not a privilege.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
About 40% of low income students that get accepted to college are subject to “summer melt”. That is, even though they matriculated, they never show up! And I would imagine that very few of the remaining 60% actually go on to graduate.
cx: even though they have been “accepted”
http://hechingerreport.org/why-are-low-income-students-not-showing-up-to-college-even-though-they-have-been-accepted/
Totally agree. It certainly shouldn’t become primarily a hugely burdening hurdle for the many and a con game for the elite.
Are we civilized yet?
–Akaddy
“At a Senate hearing in 2014, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, quizzed the head of the Federal Student Aid office, James W. Runcie, about the government’s loan income.
Warren: “My question is … where do those profits go? Do they get refunded back to the students, who paid more than was necessary for the cost of their loans? Or are they just used to fund government generally?”
Runcie: “They are used to fund government generally. They do not come back specifically into the program.”
Warren: “We’re charging more interest than we need to run the student loan program, and there’s no mechanism to refund that money to the students. … I don’t think the student loan program should be designed so that it’s making profits for the federal government.”
https://www.revealnews.org/article/who-got-rich-off-the-student-debt-crisis/
Yes. But there are now jobs that demand a college degree, not because of skill requirements, but as a sorting mechanism. Everyone who wants to get some post-secondary credential should be able to do so regardless of income. However, the “college is the escape route from poverty to the middle class” mantra, accepts that there will always be a group clawing their way out of poverty. Lower-skilled service jobs are not disappearing anytime soon. So, while fighting for free college education is important, so are a living wage, universal health care, affordable housing, etc.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
Agree. Adding, the reason that education is not a privilege, is that it ultimately benefits the nation’s prosperity and stability.
One of the many reasons I supported Bernie. DNC not speaking out for the 99%,
I think something happened between the time I was in high school and now where peoples’ work was devalued unless it was certain kinds of work, I really do.
We just stopped talking about any work other than white collar work as having any value. I feel like it was partly done to justify lower wages but it’s also cultural.
We all became snobs. It became okay to look down on people who don’t have a degree, to imply that what they do has little or no value. I don’t remember that growing up, or it wasn’t so pervasive. I feel as if there was some kind of shift and it would be better if we went back to valuing all kinds of work.
We should devalue the worthlessness of Wall Street’s activities. They drag down GDP. If Gates and Buffett had any altruism, they would have brought their talents (such as they are), to restructuring the financial sector, demanding and facilitating changes to improve economic opportunity. The obvious answer to “why they didn’t/don’t”, is they are not smart enough, they are unwilling to take on those in their own weight class or, they are blowhards. Every time Warren brings out his crocodile tears about unfair taxes on workers and, Bill and Melinda, fail to slip even one place on the richest lists (despite their embarrassing boasts of largesse), I pity America.
It is not just Blue collar work that is being demeaned. Lets see if we can make a list of occupations under assault . I guess we could start with Teachers . Notice I said occupations and not professions, I don’t think I have to explain the nuance. Feel free to add as many as you like.
When did working on Wall Street or in finance become the place for the best and brightest,certainly not when I started college in the late sixties . The pursuit /attainment of wealth and greed has become the determinant of value, even within the professions. Those “White Collar” workers are increasingly being fed into the meat grinder as well. Becoming contractors instead of employees .Being replaced where ever possible with foreign labor,(H1Bs being one example). Most of them probably with less income,benefits and security than most Blue collar Tradesman used to have and some still do. Mills had the answer for that 60 years ago.
As usual, wherever
Well, I certainly value them when I get my plumbing fixed. 150.00 just to walk in the door. More kids should learn a trade.
rickfrank
Take my word, chances are the guy who came to the house was a $20. per hr. employee total package, his boss charged that hundred and fifty. The Union tradesmen who are only to be found on large projects do very well. When they are employed, they exceed what that contractor charged you. Here on Long Island in fact in most of the nation, many of these workers were out of work for up to two years. Many of them losing houses and families .Unemployment in the construction trades is always a factor. It is one of the reasons for the high wages. In this last recession some trades experienced 25% unemployment rates . This is a race to the bottom. “With all new income going to”?
I agree. In addition to devaluing some careers, employers have been systematically chipping away at health care benefits placing more financial responsibility on the worker. The same can be said for pensions. More employers are choosing to eliminate defined benefit plans and try to change over to some type of IRA, which, they know will be a disaster for many employees. They have started this type of retirement for new hires in the police department and even in the military in the south. It is easier for them to do this in “right to work” states.
“We all became snobs.”
And “You want fries with that?” became a standard joke. I have very few boundaries when it comes to humor, but that sub-genre actually upsets me. It’s terribly depressing to consider that the hard times and dashed hopes of the millions and millions of people who work front-line service jobs amount to a punchline.
Any correlation between test scores (salaries, too) and benefit to national prosperity, bypasses the financial sector.
I went to a community college after high school and I remember thinking “oh, THIS is where all the rest of us went!” They had a basketball team and everything 🙂
You still don’t read about them, community college students, but it’s such a common experience for millions and millions of people. It’s like they’re invisible.
I actually keep the community college degree on my wall rather than the others, because so many people I encounter went there too and they comment on it. That to me is part of what I consider devaluing their work.
Some associate degree programs lead to a better paying job than some liberal arts degrees. If the student can attend a community college, they can move forward without thousands of dollars of debt.
This analysis fits in well with that of Thomas Frank in “Listen Liberal.”
Having abandoned organized labor (except when campaign contributions and phone bank volunteers are needed) and the working class, the Democratic Party promotes the canard that the answer to accelerating income (and, consequently, political) polarization is “more education,” rather than policies that help labor get a larger share of the national income.
Having convinced themselves that their affluence and status is a result of their Merit, signified by degrees from high-status institutions and professional accreditation, proffessional/technocratic elites on the coasts then find it very easy to assume the traditional conservative attitude that the losers have gotten what they deserve. And many of these people really love to punch down on the white working class, whose always-advertised racism, primitivism and disfunction (demonizing not too long ago reserved for the urban “Black Underclass” Remember them?) becomes a useful misdirection for why the middle class is collapsing rapidly, being replaced by a Precariat (workers leading a tenuous and precarious existence) and a ever-growing Unnecessariat (people who are considered entirely superfluous economically).
Well-stated and analytically accurate. It’s not the group you intended but, who I thought of, as examples of the economically superfluous- lobbyists, influence peddlers and campaign staff. Hillary’s Ohio campaign manager is the son of venture capitalists. He grew up in Cincinnati’s richest neighborhood and attended the most expensive private school, then, Yale. He and his wife worked on Obama’s campaigns. I don’t know how they got the jobs but, I can guess. The campaign jobs gave way to federal agency chiefs of staff positions, after Obama was elected. So, the taxpayers picked up the tab for the venture capitalists’ son and wife. And, we have to hope, that they will act in the interest of the 99%. An example for another day, John Podesto.
Indeed, Linda, I was only using the term in the context of conventional, orthodox economics.
The true Uneccessariat – in fact, the Parasitiat (an awkward term, but I’ll go with it for now) – is among those you mention.
Adding, the host-destroying parasites of the financial sector.
If that Black underclass had united with those under fifty voters ,we would have been in a far different place in this election cycle today. We might even might even have found that some of that “white working class” voting for Trump would have found Bernie far more appealing. I always hold out hope for the future. . However you do not want to read Thomas Frank’s latest article.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/13/trump-clinton-election-chances-moderate-policies-economy
Joel, a chilling but persuasive article by Thomas Frank.
Frank’s point is made obvious by (1) Clinton’s selection of a pro-TPP and pro-fracking, transition team leader. (2) The identity of the second largest group of Clinton campaign bundlers- Wall Street. (3) Financial links between the Clintons and Devoses. (4) Clinton’s campaign manager, united with Chester Finn and Jeb Bush, in a call to the wealthy, to donate to school privatizing politicians.
If Tim Kaine wanted to support public schools, he would have to take on a formidable Democratic opponent.
How many recent college grads, not of elite parents, without connections, do YOU know who are under employed, unemployed, not working in their fields of study? I know many. If you aren’t part of the elite club, there are no jobs for you. It takes powerful connections much of the time. George Dubya wasn’t a very smart man, yet he became President. Case and point. And while I’m at it, TFA does much of the same thing by taking middle class jobs away from the middle class, and connecting the recent “better than everyone else best and brightest” into 2 year or less teaching stints, with numerous perks, including paying off their student loans if they have them, and stipends of $1,000s of dollars from their alma maters. Its absolutely shameful.
Unfortunately, Donna, I know far too many of these recent college grads.
The joking we do about 30-year-olds “living in the basement” is,
sadly, the new reality for so many young men & women who both worked hard to get into college, continued to work hard in college and graduated with the hopes of finding a good job–a profession they’d worked hard to join (such as teaching–& the dearth of jobs here, in our area, is incredible–you won’t find even ONE “help wanted” ad for any kind of education–well, perhaps one for child care workers (who are–as we all know–grossly, immorally underpaid for the important work that they do}). Those same young people who do get jobs & are underemployed, generally have no benefits & no health insurance (my daughter’s on ACA–but look what’s happening w/the insurance companies–they’re pulling out {e.g.–Aetna, staying on in only 4 states–due to the “fact” that they’re “losing money”–translated~not making enough of a profit–even when their recourse is to raise premiums to the skies for those w/regular PPOs & HMOs}). &, of course, Aetna’s CEO will STILL pull in a reported “45.5 million +.”
It has been said that our kids’ generation is the first that has not done better than their parents & are, in cases such as the aforementioned, doing worse.
At the 2014 NPE conference, Yong Zhao gave a fabulous speech about the current situation. He said he didn’t care so much about preparing his kids for college and careers as he did “preparing them to get out of the basement.”
The link to his speech is here: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/01/the-final-best-cut-of-yong-zhaos-great-and-funny-speech-at-npe/
I was there, & it is a great speech.
As a Baby Boomer, I think many of us who attended college (esp. those who went away) had a very hard time letting go of that experience (it was a tough world out there, albeit a much, much tougher one today). Aside from the popularity of Animal House–because, no doubt about it, it is a brilliantly hilarious film–there existed “basement” young (even older!) adults, as well. That having been said, not for the horrendous reason(s) college graduates may not be able to leave their childhood homes today. The underemployment & unemployment is part of, I strongly believe, a Wall Street/financial institutions greed and failure to care, putting profits above people (except their own kids).
In my book, an incredible tragedy.
It does not need to be smart to understand that we, people all have 24 hours per day and average 60 years per life to live and to fulfill our dreams.
There are advantages and drawbacks in the beginning of where we were born into, like: parental background, community and society in our childhood/adulthood.
Most of all, our own karma gives us the look, the intelligence, and the compassion. This is the ultimate condition to bring us contentment and patience to live the way we strive to achieve for our lives.
IMHO, university learning is for people who have time to do research, to read more into their particular interest in certain subject. Therefore, if all young adults who need to work for their basic living cost, then they will not have time to learn properly at the demand of the university level. As a result, the bachelor degree does not help them after their graduation (= their knowledge has no depth).
As senõr Swacker keeps bringing up the theory of Noel Wilson = the money or owner, who pays for the work done, will pick and choose whatever and whoever they deem to suit their money, BUT NOT people’s worth.
Being veteran Educators, Lawyers and knowledgeable retirees, we should work together to develop and to create a program in which we can cultivate the awareness and the taken action to nurture leadership from public education throughout local public servants like city Councillors.
Within 25 years or one generation, we will have a better society where people live with nobility, responsibility and compassion and the true Democracy for all.
I know that I am the dreamer, but I am not the only one. Back2basic
Reblogged this on and commented:
Instead of ending poverty college has usually guarantees a lifetime of debt.