The politics of higher education ------

[Katherine Brengle]

This thread ( http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1552196&mesg_id=1552196 ) derailed a little at my own response, and I thought it might warrant a discussion all its own.

A few excerpts from that thread:

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I think the practice of monetary exchange for information (or in many cases, a piece of paper that says you have that information) is inherently classist and unjust. It rewards those who are born into wealth and severely limits the opportunities of those born into the lower classes.

As one who was not born into wealth, but pushed my way into college thanks for grants, loans, and scholarships, I've also seen another part of this. Those progeny of wealthy families not only have a better chance of receiving higher education, they also tend not to have to take out loans to get there - which means they do not leave college and start their lives in crushing debt, as happens to most college-educated children of the middle and lower classes. They already have the advantage of living in nice areas, going to great primary and secondary schools, and having a relatively easy time getting into and staying in college, but they also get a leg up on the rest of us by not having to deal with huge loan payments.

Having this financial support system also better enables these students to go on to graduate school, which often further increases their earning potential.

Anecdotally, most of the lower and middle class students I've known have not been able to FINISH college, even though they managed to get started. This includes myself. The costs build up, the loans keep getting bigger, tuition prices are rising, as are all other education-related costs, and too many of us who worked really hard for our places in this country's institutions of higher learning have to bail out.

And guess what? Turns out prospective employers don't really care if you're just 20 credits shy of your BA - it doesn't count for anything. It doesn't matter if you worked your ass off to get there, and stay there, and had a better academic record than 90% of the students who graduated - doesn't matter. Except to the creditors of course - they know exactly how long you were there, and they have the bills to prove it.

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The point is, the system is fucked up.

And I think it's by design.

Assuring that kids enter adulthood in debt (kids who aren't coming from the upper classes) guarantees a nation of cheap laborers who are willing to take whatever crumbs are passed along to them.

It's no different from when college used to be inaccessible to most people - now it's accessible to almost everyone, for a price - don't have the cash? Take out some loans - don't worry - you don't have to pay them back until you graduate.

There just aren't enough jobs out there that *truly* require the worker to have a higher education - most jobs just aren't that complicated. But we've screwed things up so badly, by the time my 3 y/o graduates from high school, she'll need a Masters to work at a drive-thru.

Things are way out of hand.

As someone said in another response here - it's like we live in a freaky futuristic sci-fi novel about a nation of highly educated slaves.

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It looks like there are a lot of people who feel very strongly about this, yet this is one of the first discussions I've ever seen about it.

So, do you agree there's a problem? If so, what is the problem precisely? And how can we start to fix it?

I think we've focused in the past on trying to make sure that low-income kids could get grants and help to get into college if they wanted to go, and this is a noble pursuit.

But we can do better.

EVERYONE going to college (and low/middle-income students suffering the burdens of huge loans when they get out) isn't really leveling the playing field any more than only the rich being able to go to college.

It could be making things worse.

Also, someone mentioned in the other thread that their sympathy does not extend to middle-class students. It is my belief that middle-class students have it the worst in a lot of cases. As a low-income student myself, I was able to finance *most* of my education with grants and scholarships (translation: money you don't have to pay back), with *only* about $18K worth of loans.

Middle-class students often fall into that area of "too poor to pay, too rich to get help" - in fact many Americans are hurting from this in a lot of ways, not just in paying college costs, but I digress.

I'm not saying the truly poor have it easier, just that middle-class students often end up incurring a lot more loan debt than low-income students.

I have that $18K. A middle-class friend of mine has $75K, just for a BA - because he didn't qualify for financial aid but his parents couldn't afford to foot the bill.

This is not uncommon.

So I ask again, how can we start to fix it?

[senaca]

1. community colleges

We should start by making community college free to those with a 3.0 and above g.p.a. Perhaps even allow high schoolers take classes in their senior year if they have met their prerequisites.
Community college classes should have core classes that can be transferable to any college in the state. By funding our community colleges the costs of college such as room and board would go down and make college more affordable. We, also, need to do something about the rising costs of University's by funding them more and, also, do something about the outrageous gouging by textbook companies. These are just some thoughts to start.

[Katherine Brengle]

4. In MA, you can already transfer your 2 year degree into a 4 year program

at a state college, but it's still not free.

And this doesn't address the core of the problem imo - too many people are going to college to prepare for jobs that really shouldn't require a college education.

[MedleyMisty]

2. Taxes and stopping stupid wars

You know how much money we spend in Iraq every day?

You know how much more taxes rich people could pay?

Not even going to get into how classist assumptions about college make my blood boil, because I want to do other stuff today.

[Katherine Brengle]

5. Go into it, because I'm not sure where you're going. nt

[Bill McBlueState]

3. kick

Good post; lots to think about here.

One of the problems activists face in higher ed reform is that people generally have no idea how the situation has changed in the past twenty years. Costs are twice what they used to be, and any guarantee that those costs will translate into a stimulating career evaporated long ago.

[Katherine Brengle]

6. Exactly - the costs go up while the benefits decrease.

[Sir Jeffrey]

7. Posts like this always make me laugh...

Not that you have said anything disagreeable or anything, but it just underscores for me the depths of how bad the US system sucks in so many areas.

First, don't expct anything to get fixed. Of course we can do better. It isn't like we face the most difficult problems in human history with no examples to guide the way. All these problems we have are fixable, and many have been solved decades/centuries ago by Europe.

The truth is, our system of govt. is intentionally broken because there is a lot of money to be made in patching up problems temporarily. No matter the industry, when true calls for reform or intense regulation begin in earnest, our system has a built-in response that leads to half-ass reforms that usually exacerbate the problem. The politicians create these half-ass solutions so their criminal friends can be a few steps ahead of the curve in cashing in on the new policies. The politicians can keep getting re-elected based on their "reforms" while the public is pacified for awhile. Then a few years/decades later, howls of protest will begin again, and the system repeats itself. In the overall scope, however, nothing really changes for the poor and the middle class keeps shrinking. The jobs keep going out of the country, the cost of living goes up as wages go down, the younger generations have to foot the bill for the older generation's debts, tax cuts and wars, etc. etc. etc.

Specific to your post, higher education costs could be centrally controlled by the Feds via direct, total subsidization of public colleges. Many European nations do this. You go to school for free. The only barrier to you attending college is your ability. Colleges are fully subsidized DIRECTLY by the state via tax revenue. Since the total cost of higher education is spread out among all citizens, the cost to the student is minimal. Then, once the student graduates, they get to pay back the system that sent them to school via taxation. Since they are earning more money as graduates, the system has more money to educate the next generation. Their earnings are not used to pay off the interest accrued on a private loan that goes directly into the pockets of senior level executives earning millions, like in our system.

We could do this here, were we to have true representation in govt. We do not. In America, money = speech:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckley_v._Valeo

...and so one must conclude that those with more money are heard by the govt. and those with little or no money are not.

Probably the biggest individual obstacle to true reform of higher education, besides the Federal govt, is the student loan industry. The student loan industry distorts the true cost of education because they are a created industry in a captive market of mostly poor and/or unemployed young adults. They are unnecessary to educate citizens.

Check out the dollar amounts the Feds spend subsidizing private lenders. They actually spend more money doing that than they would if they just loaned the money out themselves. This is why the private lenders fight so hard to keep the William Ford Federal Loan Program artificially low/limited.

And the person in the other thread expressing no sympathy for middle-class students simply proves how little things will change. Americans, as a whole, are notoriously uncaring and oblivious to the needs of others. Of course there are specific exceptions, but as a whole we prefer to ignore problems or blame the victim for their circumstances.

[Bill McBlueState]

8. your comment about apathy rings true in the lack of response to this thread

I wish we could talk about higher ed more on DU. I don't think people understand how f'd up things are.

[Sir Jeffrey]

11. I think many just don't care...

Americans aren't drawn to solving problems until they are directly affected...then they become activists. But until they are affected, the typical American response is to say "screw them, it's not my problem".

[Katherine Brengle]

14. Even when people ARE directly effected, they usually still do nothing.

I think that apathy comes from a pervasive sense of hopeless/helplessness that most of us experience as individuals in a system that does not see us.

[AnotherGreenWorld]

9. Good post except the last paragraph.

Children of middle-class parents are not victims.

[Sir Jeffrey]

12. Many middle class students are victims...

if you are a college student from a middle class family, and you get little to no financial assisitance from your parents, you're poor. The size of your parent's house, mortgage, or bank account means nothing if you are cut off or being forced to "earn your way" or "pay your dues". You work at McDonald's or Wal-Mart like the rest of us, and you live off of Top Ramen and Hot Dogs. And you rack up the same debtload as the poor. You graduate and go work the same shitty jobs as the rest of us. 40% of your income goes to paying off debt you accumulated as a student, debt you would not have were you born in ANY other Western industrialized country.

Their experience is the same as a poor student's experience. They are all victims, and they deserve better.

The system is geared to benefit the *rich*, not the well-to-do middle class. When your livlihood depends on your parents, that is a formula for the creation of a de facto aristocracy, where inherited wealth is the only true way to advance.

[Katherine Brengle]

16. Great points again.

The system, as I said before, overwhelmingly benefits the rich/upper classes.

The poor often don't have the resources to get there in the first place. The middle class students might be able to get there, but the results will not be pleasant for most of them.

[Katherine Brengle]

15. In a system where assistance exists only for the very needy, those in the middle suffer.

Middle class students are not going to qualify for financial aid, but often their parents cannot afford to pay college costs.

This leaves them with taking out massive student loans that they will have to pay back when they leave school.

I have a lot less debt because of my low income status going into college than the vast majority of middle class students I have met.

[AnotherGreenWorld]

19. Middle-class students grew up with advantages you did not.

And if they're good students, they have the same opportunities with respect to scholarships as poor students. I was low-income, but most of my financial aid came from scholarships that had nothing to do with my lower economic status.

[Katherine Brengle]

20. Scholarships that pay large chunks of tuition/fees/r&b are not

common.

Most scholarships range from $500-$5000 - most on the lower end of that.

With no federal assistance, most kids aren't going to be able to pay their costs in scholarships. A dent perhaps, but not a majority.

I'm not saying that middle class kids are at a disadvantage in general in life as opposed to lower class kids - I'm saying that they fall into the worst possible area when it comes to financing college.

[Katherine Brengle]

13. Excellent points --

my temptation is to say the entire problem traces back to capitalism, which a lot of the world has already begun to realize totally sucks as a mode for civilization, but that we refuse to reconsider.

[Sir Jeffrey]

18. The best analogy I ever heard re: capitalism...

Capitalism is just one tool in your toolbox. It is very effective at doing some things, like driving down costs and spurring innovation. It is very bad at respecting human rights and dignity.

I can't remember where I heard that, but it stuck with me regardless.

[Colorado Progressive]

10. I'll be relieved it my college debt is paid before my son starts college

[Katherine Brengle]

17. This is how a lot of people are living these days.

Forget about saving up for your kid(s) to go to college - feel lucky if you manage to pay of what YOU still owe for your education.