Math, Reading and Debt

I was working on a short keynote speech on the importance of education, especially among the poorer communities in the town I live, and I came across an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Just 37% of U.S. High School Seniors Prepared for College Math and Reading."

The article goes into the usual concerns that most of these articles have about our education system falling behind, especially in the areas of math and science. These concerns are really and we can definitely see them all around us.

However, my attention locked on to a sentence that seemed almost like a throw away to the larger context of the article:

Those who go to college often burn through financial aid or build debt while taking remedial classes that don't earn credits toward a degree.

Before reading this article, I've long been concerned about the rising college costs that I believe are spurred on by both government-issued and privately-issued consumer debt. It's simple supply and demand economics. As more people are able to "afford" college (I use the word "afford" so loosely because often folks are going into mountains of debt to "afford" college) the colleges themselves are able to raise the price of college well in excess of the our going rate of inflation (most estimates have college eduction growing at about 7% a year, whereas our historical inflation rate is approximately 3-4% in the post-WWII era). These rising prices spur on rising amounts of debt as more people try to "afford" going to college and this nasty, endless cycle keeps going.

Be that as it may, the thought that I had come into my head was that overwhelmingly, the communities that are showing the lowest reading and math skills are likely to be areas with low incomes. These kids, pursuing a continuing education in college (great for them) are often times being saddled with debt (because their families don't have the money to send them) to take classes that aren't even getting them closer to their college degrees.

Those that do work their way through a 2-, 4-, or 5-year program are then crushed with mountains of debt that even reasonably well paying jobs can't afford to pay off often times for 20 to 25 years. Even worse, the kids that don't graduate are left with mountains of debt without the economic benefit that a college degree would bring. This leads to an even more destructive cycle of poverty and education.

It hurts my heart to see this as a current state in America. I know many have gotten behind Bernie Sanders largely because of just this issue (specifically the financial component), although his solutions would largely extend the problem, not reduce it. Ultimately, I believe this comes back to spending time in schools teaching basic math and reading skills and the families at home making a concerted effort to get their children reading. I'll be fascinated to see how we progress in the next 5-10 years.