I have a friend at Northwestern who has to support herself and pay for her education. She has to work a full-time job and even then has gone deep into debt. Given the time pressure and stress, it’s a struggle for her to do well taking classes even part-time.
Now imagine all the kids who were accepted at NU or another elite college but didn’t accept because of the financial burden it would have put on their families. Taking on thousands of dollars in financial “aid” loans is not always an option.
Now remember that there are plenty of students smart enough to do well at elite colleges who never get the chance. Be it a low SAT score, an inadequate extracurricular record or simply having parents who aren’t familiar with the tricks that maximize one’s chances, the opportunities in this individual’s life are radically narrowed when the rejection letter comes.
Now think about all the kids who weren’t allowed to develop their academic skills to the point that attending an elite college was even realistic.
They didn’t benefit from a luxurious suburban high school and they didn’t have access to tutors or standardized test coaches. Because of racism or sexism they may have received a subpar education.
In this country we are kept content and passive with the “American dream” ideology. Most people rich and poor alike are taught that they can achieve success if only they work hard. This is a lie. The deck is stacked against women, minorities and children of the underclass and working poor.
Equality of opportunity is a myth our culture perpetuates. The effect is to institutionalize the current system of social inequality and economic authoritarianism. After all, if you believe that you have a chance to someday be the dictator/executive of a company or president of the country, why fight to create a new system?
Education is only one of the more obvious manifestations of America’s extreme inequality. Opulent high schools like New Trier exist just miles from inner-city schools that are literally falling apart.
The country’s power elite is culled from a few top business and law schools, whose graduates become incredibly wealthy by exploiting their fellow human beings, from Chicago janitors to Indonesian sweatshop workers.
Elite undergraduate schools like NU feed those business and law schools. Not surprisingly, 16 percent of NU students come from families with greater than $200,000 annual incomes compared with less than 1 percent of the general population.
A few million education dollars here or there as Bush, Gore and most state and national legislators propose is not going to end these shocking inequalities.
Certain steps can be taken equality of funding for all high schools, a dramatic increase in teachers’ salaries, free college education for all but these cannot end the extreme concentration of wealth and power that characterizes our society.
Only a completely different economic and political system can give us anything close to real equality and democracy.