Originally Posted by aquinas
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.
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.