Huh:
Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears to be fortifying them. ...
The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.
Who'd have thought that putting policies in place that push tuition up far beyond the rate of general inflation can't be neutralized by simply loaning more money to the poor?
I thank goodness I went to college in an age when I could work enough hours to go to school and avoid taking "guaranteed" student loans from private lenders. Oh, I took a couple courses or so that I had no intention of passing to maintain full-time status, but I still made it through the University of Michigan on the long plan. I'd miss those graduation statistics within years of starting school that are supposed to be scary.
But I survived. I have my doubts that I could have become the first in my family to graduate with a four-year degree if I'd tried today.
But how do the students discussed in the article survive the compassion of a government and university that make them virtual indentured servants who have little hope of paying off loans they can never walk away from (the constant calls I get from idiots who have no idea the woman they are looking for doesn't actually live here attest to that problem) even if they graduate with a degree?
Oh, and the awful state of urban K-12 education is part of the problem. I shudder to think of whether I'd have even thought of college or been prepared for college if I'd gone to Detroit public schools rather than Catholic schools with teachers who actually taught me and expected me to learn.
A deliberate government policy of screwing over the poor couldn't be more effective, could it?
