Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The price is too high!

I’m also going to suggest that not all—or even many—low income university-bound students take the attitude of being entitled to luxuries. Some, certainly, but that’s likely more prevalent among upper middle class students.

One important thing to remember is that most of the real learning in university happens outside the class. Informal discussions with study groups, office hours with professors, campus clubs and teams—these are the places where the seeds of learning germinate. Fly-in-fly-out students, or those whose schedules are over-full, will have difficulty participating, even if the events are free. And, for students interested in blending studies with entrepreneurship, they have to make themselves available when financiers, mentors, supply chain partners, customers etc are free. That’s hard to work around a rigid work schedule that occupies most non-class/study hours. For students undertaking research in lab, in the field, working with classified data, doing clinical work with human subjects or with specialized instructors, those are further constraints on activity.

These hypothetical students I describe aren’t lazy, indulged, or entitled. But the framework of frugality proposed would be untenable for someone who wanted to achieve these objectives. Achievement requires time on task and determination. There are different models for student success. But the reality remains that, for most students, it’s an impossibility to graduate undergrad debt free while self-supporting and providing your own necessities.

Certainly, and these are important contributions to personal and societal well-being.

However, it’s cold comfort for an impoverished, intelligent student who wants to pursue a career that requires university level training to point to other career paths that do not align with his/her abilities or interests as viable alternatives, simply because they don’t require the table stakes of university tuition. That shouldn’t happen. Given what we know about gifted underachievement and outsized high school drop-out rates among the gifted, this is a reality for many students that shouldn’t be.

The frustrating thing about debates like this is that one group has to to stick to facts, while another one can make up anything to score points. This is something important for my kids to understand as they develop and are exposed to the world.

The anti-vaccine movement is a case in point. Scientists can (and did) spend millions of dollars proving that vaccines don’t cause autism, but it doesn’t matter, because others can make up any argument that scares people (they have toxins in them, too many “antigens”, etc.). None of it is true, but listening to a knowledgeable person explain it takes time, and people who want to perpetuate the lie can spin scary stories quickly.

So it is with this thread: a study performed twice shows the terrible burden our society is placing on students. One person says that “college is affordable” and provides anecdotes and one set of numbers indicating that it isn’t. It is pointed out, using actual numbers and phenomena (eg Maslow’s pyramid, the effects of severe stress) that apply to tens of thousands of students, that college isn’t affordable. The reply ignores both those numbers and the ones she provided, and uses more anecdotes (unlike the calculations, we have to take her at her word). The author doesn’t reply to the calculations or other points brought up, IMO because there’s no refuting them. Again, this is a tactic used by people with an interest in continuing something that isn’t in society’s best interest but that suits them for whatever reason. I teach my kids that it’s used when the facts aren’t on your side.

Truisms:
1) All facts are not represented by a given study.
2) Anecdotal evidence and lived experiences... also present facts.
3) Empirical evidence (research studies) and anecdotal evidence (lived experiences) can both add value to a discussion.

Regarding posts on this topic:
1) One need not post rebuttals: Constructive contributions to the conversation can take many forms. One can choose to expend their energy according to their own wishes, time constraints, etc.
2) Some may say that posting about vaccines-and-autism may be off-topic on a thread about college affordability.

Regarding the article:
While your phraseology may indicate seeing students as passive victims ("the terrible burden our society is placing on students")... others may see students as having internal locus of control,
- by choosing whether or not to become students,
- by deferring rewards to another day ("Marshmallow test" applied to college-age rewards such as fashion, travel, lifestyle),
- etc.

The OP's article cites Temple University and Wisconsin HOPE Lab... some may find it interesting to read about these entities, from their websites and other sources. I believe I read somewhere that Wisconsin has a college tuition freeze. The HOPE Lab website states that they "...explore counseling and other approaches to help families contend with those costs, and experiment with approaches to lowering the costs while ensuring that students earn degrees of value." Sanne's contributions to this thread seem to align with those HOPE Lab goals!

Agreed. However:
1) Wants are different than needs.
2) Wants are different than rights.
3) For many families it has taken generations of coordinated effort and sacrifice to become upwardly mobile.
4) "Gifted underachievement and outsized high school drop-out rates among the gifted" are not necessarily solved at the college level... but rather earlier in one's educational career.

Middle Cass Families Increasingly Look to Community Colleges
Kyle Spencer
New York Times
April 5, 2018
Interestingly, this NYT article includes a quote from a professor at Temple (Temple is cited as a source of the research in the OP's article )...

Val, there are unconventional ways to get things accomplished. Depends on what one is willing to sacrifice. Including perhaps moving to a state with lower in-state tuition. People move across the globe and immigrate for educational opportunities, yet the general USA population would rather complain than to do what is necessary to afford what they want. I never said it is easy or comfortable. Only that it can be done. I am not claiming that everyone can afford college, nor am I providing financial advice for a specific path. Every region will have different costs of living, which is why I'm not claiming that all can do it and trying to not clog the thread with numbers which may be completely irrelevant to others. Which is why I've chosen to not provide the type of evidence you wish to see. I'm encouraging creativity and ideas for solving the problem of college expense in unconventional ways and relating people that I have personal connection to who have solved this problem.

State tuition and fees for my son's choice university is currently $8,900. The state college he plans to complete his Associates degree tuition is currently $2,375, not including fees which are not listed on the website. Minimum wage here is $7.25.

People move across the globe and immigrate for educational opportunity. Perhaps in the list of unconventional ways to afford college, we should include establish residency in a state that has institutions you can afford? It's a small sacrifice compared to what many give up for their education!

Again, you’re using personal anecdotes and ignoring the bigger picture, which is a sign of not caring and/or not thinking things through. And the data youve provided supports the case for what the OP wrote: you can’t pay for college fees on a summer job’s earnings, and college is so expensive as to force many students to live in their cars or on other people’s couches or go without food.

So let’s look at your numbers. Assuming only 10% of a paycheck goes to taxes because of low earnings, a minimum wage job where you live pays $6.53 an hour. Let’s say the fees are $8900, and your hypothetical student gets by on only $500 for books and another $100 for pens and paper and whatnot. That’s $9500. It would take more than 8 months of work full time to cover these costs. And the student has not eaten yet.

As for establishing residency in another state, the states I’ve looked at require that you live there for 6 months to 3 years before they’ll call you in-state. During that time, you’ll have to be paying rent and buying food. You can’t live in your van because you need a physical address for establishing residency. How much of that $6.53 per hour will you be able to save for college? Answer: none of it or very nearly so.

Please don’t depict difficult things as being easy. This approach is one of the things that’s created this mess.

Indigo, I’m going to ask two personal questions, and I want to preface them by saying that, in no way is it intended as an insult or derogation. I ask simply for my own edification to understand assumptions behind our perspectives. If you prefer not to answer, I’ll respect that, but please at least think these over privately.

Are you working? Have you personally experienced poverty (the kind that means you’re afraid the power will be shut off, you regularly forego meals to ensure your children eat, you’re afraid to take a day off work sick because you won’t have enough money to cover housing costs, etc.) And, in some circumstances, imagine being a child (or adult) who is afraid of coming home, because it means being subjected to a beating, sexual abuse, exposure to alcoholism/drugs in a family member, or psychological
torment.

I ask this because my perspective on “pulling oneself up by the bootstraps” and wants vs needs changed dramatically when I experienced hardship like what I describe above; thankfully only briefly. Many of the implicit institutions we value (family, friends, not worrying about being raped while walking home from a late night shift after bus service finishes, access to fresh food, physical and mental health) in our lives are a gift, and their absence can destroy an individual or family unit.

A large proporation of the poor aren’t poor simply because they are lazy or frivolous money managers. It isn’t because they refuse work. It’s because the family circumstances into which we’re born are a lottery—a tremendously influential one—that influences not just starting conditions, but the trajectory of our development.

Once upon a time, elementary and secondary education were considered a want, not a need or right. We now recognize differently. In Canada, where I live, separated or divorced parents are legally responsible for financial support for a first post-secondary certification for their children, subject to their financial means. Although there is a recognized right to access a post-secondary education enshrined in family law, it is mostly useless for low SES students. The weight of recognition of that right is almost wholly contingent on parental financial means. Talk about a way to enshrine inter-generational poverty. (Thankfully, tuition is more affordable here, and student debt is dischargeable.)

Do students in these conditions surmount their poverty and achieve university success? Yes, a small minority do, but it is at tremendous personal cost—likely far more than most of us on this forum have faced to get where we are. As I get older, I am growing to appreciate Rawlsian philosophy (the view that seeks to maximize the welfare of the least well off.) I have great difficulty, knowing that much of my current “success” arose from a lucky break in lineage, in asking someone genuinely hard working but poor to accept a life path I wouldn’t want for myself or my child, especially of there is a ready and long-term (not to mention societally beneficial) solution at hand.