The Opportunity Gap: Education
For the People, For the Country
One of the greatest problems facing our nation is that too many average people are not sharing in the nation’s great wealth and opportunities. When all our citizens are invested in the nation, when they share in its success, our nation is stronger. Thomas Jefferson said as much.
For millions of people today, economic distress has bred fear for their own future and that of their children. This played a major role in Trump’s capturing the presidency (although it is highly unlikely that Trump’s billionaire-government will improve the situation).
I have previously pointed out the danger of the exploding Wealth Gap in America, a gap that Trump’s tax cuts have ballooned. But the Wealth Gap results from a host of policies, and young people are particularly concerned about what opportunities they will have. One way at least to check the explosive growth in the wealth gap is to increase the opportunity that the Middle and Lower Classes have to get ahead, and we know that good, accessible public education is one of the best ways to do that.
Unfortunately, in education – as in politics, tax policy, and wealth accumulation – the rich have enormous advantages, and their advantages are growing as opportunities for the Middle and Lower Class recede. We desperately need to address the Opportunity Gap in American education.
Throughout American history, public education has been the great equalizer, assimilator, and opportunity. Education continues to be one of the best indicators of economic success. But today, accessible public education is being challenged and compromised.
Our Founders understood that good education was essential to a well-functioning republic. Jefferson thought deeply about the necessity of public education. He famously wrote “if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, … it expects what never was & never will be.”
Of course, in his time, education was generally only available to the wealthy (all white) and only for boys. Yet Jefferson saw that treating education as a luxury good was foolish, wasting valuable resources that could benefit not only the individual, but the nation. Publicly funded education could “bring into action that mass of talents which lies buried in poverty in every country, for want of the means of development.”
When people objected to taxes to fund quality education, Jefferson was outraged. “The taxes that will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles [aristocracy] who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.” (Replace “kings, priests and nobles” with “billionaires” and you get the point.)
Jefferson also saw that it was essential that citizens be well-educated so they could make intelligent decisions about whom to elect to office. An educated electorate “is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” George Washington had said the same: “Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.” (It is telling that Trump’s victory was dependent upon winning a large share among the less informed – getting their news from social media or one source – and the less educated.)
Across American history, the commitment to public education to get ahead has had dramatic effects. These accelerated after World War II when the GI Bill brought college into the grasp of millions who would otherwise have been excluded. Grant and loan programs did the same for several generations.
Personally, I have benefited enormously from my education – financially and in enjoying life. I would not have been able to do so without excellent public schools and access to higher education assisted by government loans and grants.
Today, though, public education at both the K-12 and higher levels is facing severe threats that are dramatically expanding the Opportunity Gap. Students are facing financial hurdles that impair access and, as Jefferson explained, hurt our nation.
Of course, the student loan crisis has gotten a lot of attention, especially Biden’s efforts to forgive excessive debt. But the debt crisis is really just a symptom of the underlying problem: Student loans have become excessively expensive. When I went to school in the 1970s-1980s, interest rates through the federal program – SallieMae – were in the 2-3% range. I had what seemed like a lot of student loans, but they were relatively easily repaid.[1] Unfortunately, Republicans have hobbled SallieMae.
Today, many of the people struggling with bankrupting student loans are paying between 6-10%. We can start to make higher education more affordable for the Middle and Lower Class by guaranteeing student loans at the 2-3% rate. With low interest, default rates are correspondingly very low; so such a program would have little cost, but it would create opportunity for those who cannot afford ever-growing college tuition.
That leads to the second problem: college costs have risen rapidly. There are multiple reasons for this. Many states have cut the share of expenses they pay at public universities.[2] Tuition has risen more rapidly than inflation. All of this while many of the most prestigious institutions have exploding endowments and colleges increasingly offer so-called “concierge” services that go well beyond the demands of a solid education.
In most of the developed world, higher education is recognized as a public good, and tuition for higher education, including vocational education, is kept very reasonable, a fraction of what is charged here.
Problems in K-12 education are equally challenging for the Middle and Lower Classes. Part of the problem relates to use of property taxes as the primary funding mechanism for public education, but such taxes obviously provide far more generous funding for schools in rich communities than elsewhere. While the federal Education Department has provided funds to narrow that gap, and more are desperately needed, the Trump Administration is now threatening the Department.
Trump has also ordered the Defense and Interior Departments to support so-called “school choice” (voucher) programs that have primarily to benefited the wealthy with limited educational benefits. The use of government funds to support private education and public charter schools depletes funds available for public education, often with little accountability. Trump is trying to dramatically expand that drain on public education.
The evidence does not show that vouchers create improved educational outcomes, although there are undoubtedly exceptions. Charter schools have similar problems. Again, the wealthy who are already sending children to private schools reap most of the benefit.
These programs are often an excuse to shift public tax dollars to support religious schools and religious indoctrination. Oklahoma is now trying to start a publicly-funded religious charter school. They also often provide very limited benefit to the disadvantaged. (It is telling that Jerry Falwell Sr. was a strong opponent of using public funds for private schools, seeing it as an unconstitutional violation of separation of church and state, until after Brown v. Board of Education mandated integration and hundreds of private, exclusionary schools opened.)
In any case, it is clear is that while our public schools struggle, America’s wealthy send their children to extremely expensive, and very good, private schools that virtually guarantee access to the best colleges.
Even beyond K-12 schools, we have known for years that early childhood education pays huge dividends for disadvantaged populations. What is lacking is the will – and the tax dollars – to make it available. We are wasting a public resource when we fail to provide all children with the best possible education.
Of course, there has long been a racial element of limited educational opportunity. The lack of educational opportunity for racial minorities is not only a serious issue of justice, but it is another instance of our losing a valuable resource. Perhaps as the Supreme Court and Trump Administration increase their attack on use of any racial preferences to address these inequities, institutions will increasingly need to turn to socio-economic factors which, given the enormous racial wealth gap, should, at least to some extent, have similar impact.
I hasten to add that this just scratches the surface of issues with access to educational opportunities. Those with more experience in education will undoubtedly inform the debate and have more and better ideas.
It is worth closing with another observation of Jefferson’s. We are increasingly a nation in which the wealthy have access to excellent education while the Middle and Lower Classes face often insurmountable hurdles. A very large share of the students at top colleges are those who benefited from extremely expensive private high schools. Jefferson warned of the danger of creating such an aristocracy: “It is safer to have a whole people respectably enlightened than a few in a high state of science and the many in ignorance. This last is the most dangerous state in which a nation can be.”
Of course, some, especially those who benefit, will defend expensive private schools, vouchers and Charter Schools and oppose paying tax dollars to assist others’ children. To some extent, this misses the point. We can quibble about means, but an educated citizenry is a public good that strengthens our nation.
All Americans should insist that our politicians take serious actions to close the Opportunity Gap in education. We need to improve our public schools for all children and make the opportunity of higher education (including vocational education) more affordable. If we hope to live in a great and strong nation, everyone must truly share in our nation’s great opportunities.
[1] One alternative to student loan forgiveness would be to retroactively reset interest rates at 3% and calculate whether debtors still owe anything after payments already made. A huge number of people still swimming in debt would be shown to have paid back the loans with interest.
[2] Some argue that the total amount states pay, ignoring inflation, is increasing, but the real value and the share of total costs is clearly dropping.