In yesterday’s column, David Brooks writes:
As Ross Douthat notes in The Atlantic Monthly, a child growing up in a family earning over $90,000 has a 1 in 2 chance of getting a college degree by age 24; a child in a family earning $35,000 to $61,000 has a 1 in 10 chance; a child in a family earning under $35,000 has a 1 in 17 chance.
The problem isn’t the lack of student aid for poor students. Brooks says the problem lies elsewhere.
1. Inadequate high school education.
2. Poor understanding about the necessary steps to get to college, ie. SAT procedures.
3. Fear of the economic risk that is involved in with forgoing years of work and accuing major loans.
4. The lack of social confidence to blend in with the rich kids at school.
All these factors lead to an imbalance of cultural capital that prevents class mobility and frustrates those with ability from rising above their situation.
Do you agree with Brooks? Would you add any other factors? What solutions do you see to this problem?
Apt. 11d 
I haven’t read Culture Capital yet, but I am interested.
I don’t necessarily disagree. I am not an expert by any means.
I think people attend college for different reasons – not just so that they can apply it to their careers.
I was surprised at a recent college orientation (my daughter’s) to find out that most students change their major 5 times, and that most people choose employment outside of their major field after graduation.
I think one reason people do attend college is because they enjoy learning. To succeed in life, I believe one must love to learn.
So I suggest that teachers focus on instilling the love of learning in their students. Give them the basic skills and give them a taste of what wonders exist in our world.
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It’s really not all that complicated. College educated people tend to have better, higher paying jobs. They’re more aware of why a college education is necessary; it never even crosses their minds that their children won’t have one.
The income aspect of this situation is a following indicator, not a leading one. Sure, they’re better able to afford an education, but, “the problem isn’t the lack of student aid for poor students”, right?
The real problem is one of motivation, real and perceived.
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JC has it. It’s what’s expected. Despite some teenage rebellion, most people end up doing what’s expected of them–after all, it worked for everyone in their parents’ peer group, right?
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I guess I am one of the 1 in 17 kids that came from a family earning under $35,000. I am the first, and currently the only person in my family, to go to college.
I agree with Brooks on some of his points. I also think that I could have used more student aid!
Personally, I had to deal with both my parents (1)not knowing anything about getting into college and (2)THEIR fear of loans. I wasn’t “allowed” to go to the school I wanted or live on campus because of the expense. I really felt like they were holding me back, but I knew it was no use to argue with them. If they refused to sign loan papers or help me finanically, what at 18 years old could I do? I didn’t have any other options or support. I needed more MONEY!
If anyone was worried…in the end, it all worked out. Almost 10 years, 2 degrees and lots of debt later, I am now making more money than my parents ever have or ever will and I have a great job that enables me to pay my student loans. I didn’t go to college to make money, but sometimes I feel like my parents resent the fact that I do.
My two younger brothers decided that “college wasn’t for them” and are now both in their 20s and still living at home. My one brother always blames my parents for having not been very supportive academically. No one supported me either and I went to college. My motivation is what got me through it and into a job that I love. He has NO motivation and now my parents are supporting him—he doesn’t even pay rent!
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Children of the code has just published a fascinating article on academic success and parenting styles (in part), an interview between David Bolton and Todd Risley
http://www.childrenofthecode.org/interviews/risley.htm
Two quotes :
Bolton: Last night I talked with George Farkus and he made it really clear that from a sociological research point of view they’ve known for many, many years now, although they haven’t been able to get it across very widely, that eighty percent of the variation in public school performance result from family effects not school effects.
Dr. Todd Risley: So, what actually is going on in 110 waking hours of the child is either a lot or a little. The average child is hearing about 1,500 words an hour addressed to them hour after hour after hour when they’re awake. And that’s true before they’re talking. Talkative parents were talking the same amount to their babies way before the babies ever answered them with words.
David Boulton: 1,500 words an hour?
Dr. Todd Risley: 1,500 words an hour on average. That’s the experience of the average American child. It’s our best guess. I mean, we’ve got forty-two kids, but they’re sampled. It’s the only look we have by the way, still the only data we have about the daily lives of children. But it’s our best guess.
So, you know, how big is this elephant? Well, it’s someplace in the neighborhood of about 1,500 words an hour. It’s what the average child is experiencing hour after hour in the bosom of their family. Now, that adds up.
What we found is that the more talkative parents, like the parents with college educations and the professionals like doctors and lawyers are hearing about 2,100 words an hour, hour after hour after hour. The children of welfare families were hearing about 600 words and hour, hour after hour after hour.
So we said, “All right, what was the difference in language input, in language experience, of the language they heard, words they heard in meaningful contexts?” We estimated that the average child, figuring 100 hours a week, by the time they were four, heard thirty million words addressed to them.
But the children of professional parents — I mean, talkative families and college educated — heard forty-eight million words addressed to them by the time they’re four.
Children in welfare families who were taciturn heard thirteen million words addressed to them by the time they were four.
Those are massive differences in language experience way before children enter school. Those differences were so large that we devoted the first book to focusing on them, on those massive amounts of differences.
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whilst I don’t disagree, I think this is simplistic thinking. There are many different possibilities for lower income kids, and many possibilities of why they are from low income families. My children have extremely highly educated parents (both with PhDs) but they live with me and I’m disabled so our income is very low. Does this mean that they attend sub-standard schools? Absolutely not. They attend top rated schools and take honors classes. Does that mean that I’m unable to find financial aid for them? Absolutely not. I’m more than capable of navigating the system because that’s what I have to do on a monthly basis in order to heat, clothe, and feed our family. Do my kids lack the social confidence to hang with the rich kids. Hahaha! We live in a city with multi-million dollar homes and their friends have disposable incomes that would make most of us green with envy. Just because we’re poor doesn’t mean that we are relegated to the ghetto. We’re not alone in our city. 17% of the kids in our public schools are on the free/reduced lunch program, one of the ways the city measures it’s poor. While that is lower than LA or NYC, we live in a city with 90K people, almost all of them residing in homes that sell for the average of $800K.
I don’t like the simplistic thinking that lumps all poor people into one dynamic. We’re just as diverse, just as different as in any other financial mode.
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“..would you add any other factors?..”
Well, some people are brighter than other people. And smart people tend to find each other attractive, and marry. When they have children, their children, though on average closer to normal than their parents, are still smart. Some people are duller than other people. When they have children, they, though on average closer to normal than their parents, are still dull.
Dull people make less money than smart people, most of the time. So, the children of people who are making less money are often themselves dull. And that’s a reason for doing less well in college. It’s a good thing to find a way for smart kids from low-money environments to get to college, etc. But some kids from low-money environments are not college material – not because they lack confidence, or social skills, or whatever, but because they don’t do abstract thinking, and won’t, and can’t. It’s not fair, but as Jimmy Carter once said, life isn’t.
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A greal deal of it has to do with parental attitudes and ambition.
My parents both lived through the Depression (and my father the Oklahoma Dustbowl) and they had an extremely strong “my kids will do better” ethic that included a push for education. They did well for themselves through a combination of a desire to “rise above,” above average intelligence and an extremely strong work ethic.
Neither of my parents knew anything about the college process but they made certain we were headed that way, and gave us every encouragement.
When we were very young my parents were still very poor, but they bought every child’s book they could afford. We still have most of those books, just so we don’t ever forget.
In the blue collar world, and I am still very close to that, there is now a “we got along ok with a high school education so why can’t you?” Not to mention the desire to start making money, get the truck or fast car, etc. Some stereotypes are true.
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“2. Poor understanding about the necessary steps to get to college, ie. SAT procedures.”
I can’t tell if “understanding” is Brooks’s word or your paraphrase of Brooks. If poor understanding is defined as poor education about, exposure to, etc., then yes.
The family effect is huge. I would even discount poor HS education–we’re talking about college as a credential, not some absolute measure of achievement. Even if we stipulate that HS education has declined, colleges are going to fill their freshman classes with the best applicants they can get, even if those applicants are not as prepared for college as in the past.
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