<p>If you look at the history of the Catholic universities in this country, many of them were started to provide an education for the children of immigrants who were shut out of college by the old-money crowd. Holy Cross, for example, was established to educate the children of Irish immigrants who did not have access to Harvard. Brown wouldn’t give Italian kids the time of day, enter Providence College, etc.</p>
<p>This happened in a family I know. Veteran came home from WWII, Brown forced to reluctantly accept him due to a government program, Brown held its nose as it accepted a POLISH-AMERICAN, of all things!!</p>
<p>The Morrill act establishing land grant universities did the same thing on a secular level.</p>
<p>The uber-rich and the children of the aristocracy have had access to education since the late 1600’s. Middle class and below, not so much until relatively recently.</p>
<p>Pointing out that being low income is as bad or worse than low achievement in terms of chance of graduating college. I.e. many college-capable high achieving students from low income families never realize their potential due to disadvantages associated with coming from a low income family.</p>
<p>True, but the presumption for many decades is that parents will support their child’s college education to some degree. The path to a degree greatly narrows if the student has to fund it entirely alone. Hence my comment about improving the CC to Uni path in many states. If those parents, who lived on the edge, are willing to accept that their children will enter CC and fund their own college education or live at home and drive to the nearby uni and the kids understand, the scenario works. Many families choose this option. If those same parents expect that their kids will have the go-away, sleep-away, car-sticker experience on the largesse of other entities that scenario is not necessarily going to pan out except for a small number of high-stat, highly desirable students. I have a co-worker struggling with this right now - never saved any money, doesn’t know how to pay for the student’s college, won’t qualify for need-based financial aid, has a great much not uber-great student. In some states, the flagship and directional unis aren’t even financial safeties for families with month to month cash flows and low savings. Those are the kids who are between a rock and a hardplace.</p>
<p>Perhaps, but we’re not talking specifically about private school education. It is very difficult for kids today to work and fund their own public university degrees. Loans and a job will take care of the first two years, but loans and a job will not in many states cover the tuition, books and living expenses for the final two years if the parents cannot supplement from past savings, current income or future earnings unless the uni is driveable distance and the student can live at home for free. It is only recently that private schools have tuition discounted to the degree that they are currently and the general public looks at them on an even playing field vs. public education and even then in many cases they will discount only near what they know the family will pay for the public education to make it an attractive and viable option - so generally private school educations would not be viable for a income generating family where parents cannot or will not contribute. </p>
<p>It’s tiered as it’s always been - if you can’t afford a country club you play golf on a public course, can’t afford first class airfare you fly coach, can’t afford a Mercedes you drive a GM, can’t afford a five star restaurant you eat at Applebees, can’t afford Macy’s you shop at Target or Wal-Mart…college education is no different. The poor have some safety nets like Pell and unis that meet need, the rich have choices…the middle class has what it can afford and the middle class might be shrinking but it’s vast.The problem is the go-go eighties made everyone think they had to have what they want and not what they need. </p>
<p>I might be an outlier here, but I really don’t care if private colleges are full of “rich kids”…and I don’t think it’s a moral or societal imperative that private colleges have a financially diversified student body, If that is those institutional missions, more power to them to go out and seek those kids. I’m far, far more concerned as a US resident about the escalating prices of our public universities. If anything this focus on these private institutions diminishes and detracts from the richness and greatness that exists in our public universities.</p>
<p>Another case of correlation does not equal causation. And this is the NYT?</p>
<p>I would rather like to see a real analysis of why they graduate vs. not. Is it how prepared they are for college? The support or pressure they get? The role models they have? Etc.</p>
<p>The disparity is about the student not about the parent’s income.</p>
<p>Frequently, it’s none of those Fluffy. It’s often because they go to a school that is unaffordable and run out of money. Predictably. but still a problem.</p>
<p>Absolutely agree. The other question that needs to be asked is “what is the purpose of a college education?” All of us who are more than 40 remember how most of our high school classmates did not feel it necessary to go to a 4-year college. They could find jobs as office workers, factory workers, etc., without a university degree. Those jobs are either gone or are demanding to see resumes with bachelor’s degrees. That wouldn’t be so bad if college were truly affordable for all families. But when it isn’t, having that requirement in place is effectively barring a significant portion of young people from becoming productive members of society, let alone achieving upward mobility.</p>
<p>So, something has to change. College costs, job requirements, something. If it doesn’t, the US is on track to become like a Third World economy, in which you only have the super-rich and the starving populace. I don’t say this will definitely happen, I’m just saying it’s the direction in which we seem to be headed. </p>
<p>I think that the easiest and most obvious area for change to happen is for employers to stop demanding BAs for jobs that don’t really need them, but I have no idea how to make that happen. Maybe there needs to be some new kind of proxy for what employers are looking for and for which they currently demand to see a BA – the qualities of responsibility, intelligence, commitment, self-motivation, organization. But I don’t know what that would be.</p>
<p>Requiring a BA for a job that obviously doesn’t require a BA is just a quick way to cut the applicant pool to a more manageable size. I agree it’s silly. But, there is no shortage of qualified applicants. </p>
<p>What is the cost of CC to BA in other states? Because plenty of people are doing that here or even going straight to the commuter school down the road which is overcrowded but not with rich kids. That would be unthinkable. Anyway, COA for 4 years is far less than one year at some of the schools we talk about here. Still not cheap, but certainly not impossible with loans, jobs, and scholarships. And, many students live at home.</p>
<p>In other words, is this really a problem? There are working class kids in college. </p>
<p>Agree with actingmt, Since there are so many unemployed college educated applicants, why not use it to thin the applicant pool. </p>
<p>If everyone who really doesn’t want to be a student and won’t get a lot out of college didn’t feel they had to go, just to get any job, the pool of college grads would be smaller. Employers would have to hire from a pool of very qualified, but not college educated applicants. I see a lot of kids who are just not into learning, don’t do well in school but continue to go and waste money there just to get a degree that they won’t actually use. The only reason they do is because they are living in a time where they have to, even though it makes no sense. </p>
<p>It would be great if trade schools that prepared students for a job they are actually interested, and don’t cost over 50k a year for 4 years, became more popular. I think everyone would benefit. </p>
<p>Using examples in California for De Anza College and San Jose State University, here are the four year costs under various conditions:</p>
<p>Living on one’s own: 2 * $19,098 + 2 * $25,180 = $88,556
Living with parents: 2 * $12,198 + 2 * $16,766 = $57,928
Living with parents subsidized*: 2 * $3,204 + 2 * $9,310 = $25,028</p>
<p>*subsidized means that the parents willingly cover food, utilities, transportation, and misc expenses of the student living in the parents’ house, without charging the student or accounting for it as part of the cost of sending the student to college.</p>
<p>Thanks. Now, we have to factor in financial aid because we are talking about working class kids. So, in CA they could do it for much less. People I know in that state have attended CC for a total cost of 0 and transferred into UC’s and Cal states with tuition completely waived. Housing costs were an issue but manageable with jobs. They are not by any definition poor or from poor families. This may not be as easy in other states. I don’t know. But in CA it’s a no-brainer.</p>
<p>Most don’t do this, though. Most just seem to go to the CC forever. Some go to a variety of CC’s. I have no idea what’s going on with them but I’m guessing there is no plan in place and it’s basically free if you get a fee waiver which is not a big hurdle from what I am told.</p>
<p>California is probably one of the better states to be for a student from a poor family attending an in-state public school, due to relatively good in-state financial aid policies (although they do differ between the CSU and UC systems). Some other states like Pennsylvania have a reputation of being expensive with poor financial aid for in-state students.</p>