So...where did YOU go to high school? (St. Louis, Oakville: transplants, private school)

[Bobster]

TGS: Dorm or apartment...it doesn't really matter. The facts are that families from higher socio-economic backgrounds enroll in post-secondary educational institutions at 3 to 4 times the rate that kids from lower socio-economic circumstances and while I couldn't find the exact figures, I would theorize that of the kids that do go to college that kids from high socio-economic backgrounds probably graduate 3 to 4 times (if not more) often than poorer kids.

Again, I'm not saying that it's impossible, just extremely difficult as evidenced by the fact that many poorer kids don't even try to go to college and that of those that do attempt it, a much smaller percentage of kids from poorer backgrounds are successful at it.

In a society that can spend hundreds of millions of public dollars on football stadiums, excess nuclear missile capacity, $800,000 watches, I don't see why we can't better support our kids going to college. I would venture to say that the money that we would spend making a college education possible (and feasible) to ALL Americas would be paid back with interest.

I honestly don't know how we got off on this tangent, but to try and tie it back into the thread....in St. Louis I do think that the "high school" question is a short hand way of ascertaining information about a person. If you say "Hodunk high", you're probably a Jefferson County Hoosier whereas if you say "Snooty Academy" you're probably a West county snob (I've lived North, South, East and West, so I'm a little bit of each). I'd also go as far as saying that if we better and more equally funded our educational system (including higher education) that this question would probably go away over time.

[anduarto]

Couldn't agree with your post more, Bobster. Particularly the part were you compare our priorities. I think it's dismal how little we're willing to invest in higher education when we're happy to shell out all kinds of money for other things.

It's always been tough to get through four years of college, but it's gotten MUCH more difficult in the last 20 years. I think it started with the dismantling of the Guaranteed Student Loan. Now it really is a luxury to go to school. We have to reverse the tide.

[aragx6]

We could start by offering better loans to students subsidized by the government. I don't mind paying to go to school, but when even loans aren't enough what's a kid to do?

You can do what friends of mine did- take out one of those horrible private loans that charge you 15% interest + the whole time you're in school

[bilikins]

I graduated from college a few years ago -- I think paying for college is difficult these days, but a lot of it also has to do with making good (informed)decisions and setting priorities. People these days simply do not want to take personal responsibility (I was one of these people). Against the advice of my parents, I chose to attend a private college in Boston and took out nearly $60,000 in loans despite graduating a year early. I worked all throughout college, but that barely made a dent in the student loans.

My husband, on the other hand, had collected a year and a half's worth of community college credits by the time he graduated from high school. His state school charged tuition of about $6000/year. His relatively small scholarship covered his room charges, and he *easily* paid for the rest of his bills during the summer and school year, graduating with zero debt.

Neither of us had any help from our parents, but working hard and making good decisions go a long way, and those who make bad decisions (like me) have to live with them.

A lot of people want to believe that more financial aid will solve everything, but IMO, it really doesn't -- some schools will always be ridiculously unaffordable and some students will still want what they cannot afford... They're going to be making financial decisions the rest of their lives, so they might as well learn in college.

[aragx6]

But even most public schools are not that inexpensive anymore!!

Any tier one public school is going to cost big bucks- even as a student in-state.

According to Mizzou's Web site: Educational fees and books for the year total appx. $9,100 a year. Living in the dorm is $7,170. That's already over 16k a year, and that's if you don't even buy a pack of gum (Mizzou estimates personal expenses at just over $2800 a year, which is probably pretty fair considering ramen noodles, gas to get home for holidays etc.)

Now considering you can only get $3500 in loans your freshman year from the government, you were a good student so you got about $4000 in scholarships ($2000 for the excellence scholarship for being in the top 25 percent of your high school class and getting a 27 or better on your ACT- NO SMALL FEAT! and $2000 as a bright flight scholar for getting a 30 on your ACT), you're still only at $7,500- less than half of what you need!

So you work a $6.50/hour job at school (probably from a work study allotment) for 20 hours a week (which is pretty freakin' hard when you are already in class over 15 hours a week and you have hours of reading to do each night) that still only gives you $3900 over the 30 weeks of the school year!

You're still almost 9k short so you work like a dog all summer at Subway making $6/hour (scary, but true, it happened to me!). You work 38 hours a week (they won't let you work more because then they'd have to provide you with benefits) for 9 weeks- ha that's less than $3000 before taxes!

Meanwhile your rich counterparts are doing unpaid internships in New York City so they can actually get a job after they graduate!

I think it's absolutely ludicrous to say that more financial aid (including increases in the amount of loans you can take out- I'm not asking for anything for free!) won't help. If you could take out $7000 in loans your freshman year, it would make things a lot simpler, and fairer.

If my dad hadn't left me an inheritance, I wouldn't have made it through college, and honestly your dad shouldn't have to die in order for you to be able to afford college.

[bilikins]

Financial aid actually HAS been going up, but that hasn't made private schools that much more affordable to poor students. I absolutely agree that public schools need to be funded with at least loans, but it seems to me that the mentality these days is that every kid "deserves" to go to whatever school he/she gets into, regardless of cost.

An example of additional financial aid opportunities (that were certainly not available to my generation) is the the SMART grant (worth $4000/yr) that is available for students with a GPA of over 3.0 and majoring in science/math/languages/computers. You can have this combined with the Pell Grant.

It's true that the summer before college, you are likely to make $6/hr or whatever the minimum wage is in each state. But I would hope that most students would acquire some marketable skills as they go through college. Even being a call center person at say, Microdyne, would get you 8-12/hr in rural Orono, Maine... And they are not exactly known to be selective with their hiring. My husband made $12-15/hr during his summer internships after his freshman year. During the school year, he refused work study and instead worked 20+ hours a week as a waiter. On extremely busy Friday and Saturday nights, he often made as much as $100-200/night. It is not fun, but it's doable, and he graduated with zero debt with no help from his relatives.

Scholarships are also a good option, whether you go to public or private school. There are a lot of opportunities for underprivileged students; they just have to search for them.

In addition, people are overlooking community college courses -- they are dirt cheap and can save you as much as two years worth of credits. I came in with 15 CLEP credits and 5 community college courses and saved a year of college -- if you take those classes during the summers or even online, you can come out with a lot less debt.

[aragx6]

Originally Posted by bilikins

It's true that the summer before college, you are likely to make $6/hr or whatever the minimum wage is in each state. But I would hope that most students would acquire some marketable skills as they go through college. Even being a call center person at say, Microdyne, would get you 8-12/hr in rural Orono, Maine... And they are not exactly known to be selective with their hiring. My husband made $12-15/hr during his summer internships after his freshman year.

This was Columbia, Mo- I applied for no less than 15 jobs, but Columbia dies in the summer and has very few internship possibilities. I was required to sign a 12 month lease on my apartment so I was not able to leave the area.

Pretty much every journalism internship I came across was unpaid- something I didn't have the luxury of.

I'm not trying to be rude, but using anecdotal evidence to condemn people with different circumstances is really unfair or to say that they should be able to do this or that shows a lack of understanding.

[Bobster]

bilikins....I'll say it again, it is possible. You and your husband have shown two ways of doing it....my point is that it's not feasible for a large percentage of young people out there.

I was talking to my son about the discussion here and I asked him how many of the kids that he knew who were from lower socio-economic backgrounds that had started around the time that he did that were still attending Auburn. His answer, none!

Now, I'll admit that Auburn, while a state school, is probably a bit more hoity than many schools. It also seems to attract kids from higher socio-economic backgrounds and that it probably does suck being the "poor" kid, but I honestly don't think that he's living that high on the hog.

Community colleges are great options for some kids, but I don't think that it should be a requirement that poor kids should have to forgo the 4 year college experience simply because of their economic status.

Baron has worked 15 - 25 hours a week every year since his sophomore year, most recently as a waiter. He has taken time off in order to come home for breaks. He also owns a car (with over 175,000 miles on it). My point is that there probably are certain things that he could do to cut expenses, but my other point is, should he have to?

We live in a very wealthy society that as I pointed out in earlier posts doesn't blink an eye at spending hundreds of millions of dollars in public money on football stadiums and the like. We also live in a society where the wealthiest 5% of our population controls something like 80% of the wealth.

These people ***** about being taxed too much, yet can still afford to have a pair of shoes flown cross country on a day's notice in a private jet so that they can wear them to a party. I recently read an article in a magazine that talked about an $800,000.00 watch that has something like a 4 year wait if you wished to purchase one.

To Quote Ronald Reagan, "All boats rise with a rising tide". Is this what the powers that be are afraid of?

Bilikins, if what you said was true, don't you think that a higher percentage of poor and middle class kids would be successful at achieving it?

If you went to a poor neighborhood and tested a thousand 4th graders at random for intelligence, you'd get a very similar standard bell curve as you would get if you went to a wealthy area and tested a thousand kids there. Don't the poor kids deserve the chance to fulfill their potential every bit as much as the rich kids do?

The statistics show that this isn't happening. In a society as wealthy as ours this shouldn't be the case.

Moral issues aside, it is also costing us as a society to allow all of this talent to go to waste. If a kid from Martin Luther King and Hodimont has the potential to be a brain surgeon or a college professor yet instead ends up working at the post office, didn't we leave something on the table there?

How about the research scientist that isn't because he dropped out his sophomore year because he was tired of always being broke? Now he's managing a Quikie Lube.

We, as a country, have been blessed with a wealth of resources, as well as some other unique competitive advantages. As the world's economy's become more globalized these advantages will become more and more difficult to maintain. Squandering our intellectual resources by not providing adequate support for higher education will end up costing us in the long haul.

The rich will be able to take advantage of this and won't be affected, but as time goes on we, as a country, we begin to fall further and further behind countries that foster their intellectual resources regardless if they are poor or rich.

[aragx6]

Fantastic post Bob. Thanks for that, very well said.

[bilikins]

Obviously poor students should not be forced to go to community college or any college at all, but it is a good option that people often overlook due to illusions of prestige. Some community college classes are easy, yes, but others are just as intellectually challenging as "real," 4 year college courses. A pretty campus does not ensure a rigorous education, and an urban campus/no campus at all does not mean that you will miss out on learning social skills along the way. Many states have fantastic community college systems. I definitely believe that STATE schools and community colleges should receive funding, but I think there is a huge difference between funding student loans and academic grants for community college/low-cost state schools and blindly increasing financial aid every year in order to meet the ridiculous tuition of some universities -- even if rich kids get to attend those schools.

Just because someone chooses to pay to pay $55,000 for a "high ranked" school, or because Donald Trump may own an $80,000 car, does not mean that we SHOULD. People make hard decisions all their lives. They give up wants for needs, and if they go through life refusing to take personal responsibility because "someone" out there spends more money than them, they're going to be in a lot of trouble later on in life.

People are poor for a variety of reasons. Some have language barriers. Others get sick or have to take care of sick relatives. Some are not motivated. Some have physical or mental disabilities. Others have personal problems that prevent them from fulfilling their goals. I really doubt that attending, say, St. Louis Community College instead of UIUC contributed to their poverty! :-/

I have worked at a community college, and I've seen the AMAZING women with three children who make it to class, the 60 year old grandparents who are just now returning to school, and the first generation Americans striving to make something of themselves. They don't give a crap about other people's cars or being able to fly to Cancun for spring break; they're working their a**es off and they are taking responsibility for their own lives. If you feel that this is unreasonable or an exceptional case, go to any community college and take a look. They are working hard, they are learning, and I strongly believe that they *will* make it.

There is a much bigger world out there than middle class America, and if we have some sort of moral responsibility to help anyone, I would think we need to start looking at THE poorest people first (which includes working on our community colleges and lesser known/cheap state schools -- whether middle-class families want to consider these options or not).