The Lower Classes Knowledge Gap Problem
With an assumption of no help from anyone government or parents you could work your way through college with a minimum wage job and only have to pay $350/month for 10 years. If you have a decent plan college is very affordable that is not the problem with the education system. The problem is that most people don’t understand how the education system works.
They don’t know how to apply for financial aid that community college is an affordable way to bridge the gap that living with your parents for a few years saves money and reduces the burden on your parents as well. The lack of knowledge is more a result of the class system of the United States becoming more pronounced. Students from lower-income families are actually dramatically subsidized to attend college, but they are not prepared for the rigorous coursework or don’t go because they don’t understand how to and have no role models to show them.
Another problem are the preparation for college such as grade school. Primary Schools (K-12) are usually supported by property taxes and the lower classes simply don’t pay as much thus less gets funneled into the school which lowers the education level. With a lower education level students simply do not attain an adequate level of education and subsequently fail out of college. My grandmother told me the easiest way to see if a neighborhood was poor was to count the number of churches in it. The more churches in a neighborhood the poorer it is. Churches don’t pay taxes or offer jobs so the neighborhood doesn’t improve finically and as a result the property taxes of the area are dramatically lower affecting the school system. It is becoming increasingly difficult to rise above a low-class system, but that has nothing to do with the affordability of college and is a topic for another blog.
Why Prestige and Private School Aren’t always equal
Also Bella Knox as well as other believe that the prestige of the school is important. There is no denying that the prestige of the school matters to a degree. Graduates of smaller schools tend to have a harder time finding prestigious jobs than their peers at more prestigious schools; however, you can find public schools with similar prestige or even arguably higher prestige than private schools with none of the markup. For example, Texas A&M and the University of Texas are arguably the most prestigious schools within a thousand mile radius probably more. Going to a prestigious school and all the benefits that encompass that can be affordable with proper planning.
