Who’s the Luckiest One?
College: What was supposed to be a springboard for equality, has turned into a breeding ground for the privileged? This is no surprise, and has been a problem since the school system began. But what can be done about it?
This morning’s NYT has a good op-ed by Thomas Edsall:
…after World War II, college education today is reinforcing class stratification, with a huge majority of the 24 percent of Americans aged 25 to 29 currently holding a bachelor’s degree coming from families with earnings above the median income.
74% of students going top rated colleges (mostly the Ivy League), come from families with earnings in the top income quartile, while only three percent come from families in the bottom quartile.
Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and co-author of “How Increasing College Access Is Increasing Inequality, and What to Do about It,” puts it succinctly: “The education system is an increasingly powerful mechanism for the intergenerational reproduction of privilege.”
As for me, i would fit somewhere in the middle (i was lucky, and I worked really hard): my college spanned Ft Collins Community College, UCLA then graduating from Columbia U as an adult. But the best thing about Columbia, besides great professors and the City, was HEALTH INSURANCE — more on that later as I’m off to my current health insurance policy which is called Bikram Yoga.
College? Although Rick Santorum thinks it’s a four-letter-word, but how do we get more kids to at least have the option? Start with a better K-12? Too bad kids can’t vote.
more TK:
your friend in Woody Creek, who beat the roosters this morning.
I mean, I didn’t literally beat them, just beat them to the morning "ro-ros."
Anita Thompson
