The Growing College Gap

The Growing College Gap

This essay written by Tamara Draut (pictured left), provides some good insight into the rising tuition costs and strict academic requirements held by reputable employers. She is the director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, a nonpartisan public policy reasearch and advocacy organization. In her essay she explores the challenges of lower income famililes in sending children to college.

Not particularly mentioned in her essay but an issue that is of importance, is the quality of high school education lower income students are provided. Low income families and households are generally restricted to the poorest high schools and elementary schools that provide their students education. As a result, these students that were unfortunate enough to receive this situation are clearly less likely to receive the "merit" based scholarships that more and more institutions are turning to. This decline in need based scholarships in combination with a cost of tuition rising much faster than aid is allowed to provide is brushing away students that would otherwise be able to afford college. How are these already financially burdened students when the average amount of student aid only covers 33% of the costs of tuition? This forces students that do enroll in colleges to work full or part time while attending school full time. I can tell you from experience that this situation does not work, and will result in poor grades in the majority of students. Students are constantly burned out, agitated, exhausted, and have trouble keeping up with all the tasks they are required. With education advancing, students are required to take courses that demand time and simply should not be subjected to an excessive work schedule (greater than 10-15 hours per week). It is my opinion that every student should devote the majority of his/her time to studying and applying themselves academically to reap the full benefit of attending college without the burden of financial distress.

Students working excessive hours run into other problems as well while attempting to put themselves through college. They typically have problems registering for the next semeseter because they have not generated enough money to pay their current obligation. As a result, and while their credit is damaged in the process when their student accounts are transferred to collection agencies, they are at a disadvantage to every other student that may register on time. They pick up the teachers with the poorest teaching abilities in the school, they have a tough time enrolling in the classes they need to fulfill their majors, and have no flexibility in the timing of their schedules. It seems reasonable that a student that typically works later hours (such as a waiter and bartender) will likely rise and go to sleep later in the day. If this student had the flexibility to pick the schedule they wanted, they could maximize their opportunity to learn by taking classes at times that suited them best.

This poor performance of financially burdened students paired with the growing number of college hopefuls that are discouraged by financial distress present real problems in our economy. Human capital is typically referred to as an important dynamic in the output of any economy. Until these problems are fixed and students can find the financial aid they need to make it, grades will decline, and the "growing gap" between graduation of the richest and poorest students will continue to diverge.