
The Reproduction of Privilege - pg
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/the-reproduction-of-privilege/?src=recg
======
rdl
There are a lot of points in this (some of which seem bogus), but just to
focus on one:

"Higher education itself has polarized" -- relative growth in competitive,
very competitive, and most highly competitive colleges AND in community
colleges, but not in the less and noncompetitive 4-year colleges.

This seems like something to be celebrated and encouraged, not reviled. I
really don't see any reason for any but the top 100 universities (maybe less)
to exist as residential institutions, focused primarily on research; the
community college system, plus the Internet, should be sufficient for the vast
majority.

High quality community colleges (and not forgoing income by going to school
instead of working for 4 years) would go a long way to reducing the income
gap, especially combined with decent public education and free Internet
resources.

Pell Grants cover 62% of the cost of community college, and there are usually
state funds on top of that. There are very good reasons to not cover 100% of
the cost of education with "free money" -- bringing it down in cost to the
point where the poor can afford it at some acceptable sacrifice should be the
goal. Lowering the actual cost of delivering community college classes makes
more sense than trying to use federal money to subsidize inefficient
producers, too.

The big problem with community colleges is branding and prestige. A lot of
people could get just as good an education in the community college format,
but as long as employers view a 4 year BA in communications from some
relatively worthless college or university as superior to the community
college degree, it will be a problem. Some kind of independent credentialing
system (vendor certs in tech are one example -- a self-taught CCIE is probably
a better pick to build and admin a Cisco network than a guy with a BA in IT
from U of Phoenix), merit based candidate evaluation (which in some cases runs
up against antidiscrimination laws...), and a move away from hiring as
employees to hiring contractors or buying services from small firms.

I wish there were a way for the super-rich to earn as much prestige by
endowing basic technical courses at thousands of community colleges as by
building yet another stadium at a mediocre large university.

~~~
buss
> There are very good reasons to not cover 100% of the cost of education with
> "free money" -- bringing it down in cost to the point where the poor can
> afford it at some acceptable sacrifice should be the goal. Lowering the
> actual cost of delivering community college classes makes more sense than
> trying to use federal money to subsidize inefficient producers, too.

I think that you shouldn't _have_ to sacrifice _anything_ to become educated.
I think that would mean the poor are always sacrificing relatively more than
their richer contemporaries. If we don't cover the entire cost of education
for those most unable to pay then we are continuing the stratification of
higher education.

Say the cost was covered at 80% for individuals coming from families making
$40,000 or less per year. This family is probably already struggling to save
money while paying their bills, and having to divert any amount of money to
the continued education of a child is probably off the table. This requires
that the child work while attending school which takes valuable time away from
studying and getting enough sleep. Lots of people work while going to school
and end up dropping out or going every other semester because they don't make
enough in their low-paying unskilled labor job. This is a vicious cycle which
results in the poor staying poor because they can't make enough at the job
they must have in order to pay for education.

Children from wealthier families can afford to funnel a bit of money towards
their education, and maybe only work part-time for some spending money. Don't
get me wrong - highly educated people are great for a society and this
shouldn't be discouraged, but I also think we have a duty to help those living
harder lives than our own.

~~~
rdl
I agree most education should be free -- just not that 4-year residential
institutions (particularly mediocre ones) should be subsidized. The purpose of
partial payment by the user for a service like community college is to
discourage waste; something on the order of $100-200 per class would be
adequate for that. It would be payment by the student, not by his family.

The community college model is that you can work while attending. I don't
think it is unreasonable to expect someone to do so -- working full time while
attending a 4 year university is probably not viable (I tried doing it, and
ultimately dropped out), but I think the Internet should allow an expansion of
the role of online courses and community college, both highly compatible with
work-study.

I would go so far as to eliminate non-merit scholarships and financial aid
(subsidized loans, etc.) for 4 year institutions (except for things like the
GI Bill which are a form of compensation). They should not be the mainstream
form of education.

This only works if we can remove "must have 4 year degree, we don't really
care from where or in what" as a job qualification for most jobs. I'd like
there to be qualification tests for jobs, vs. checking a box for a degree. In
this case, only circa 1900 level of 4 year college attendance would happen,
and the vast majority (95%+) would have high school for general education and
some specialized training beyond that for employment.

------
kunle
I dont know if it's more scary that you can basically predict someone's SAT
score by knowing their family income, or that you can predict their family
income by knowing their SAT score.

------
snambi
My father used to tell me this "Provide education for free to those who really
want it and deserve it. If not provide it only those who can pay for it".

My father was a professor in India, where college education is free. All state
funded colleges are free and most of them are easy to get into. But most of
the students are not interested in learning, they come to college for time
pass. So, free education should be given to only those who deserve.

