Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Too Poor For Graduate School

Here is an interesting article in the Washington Post (online) about how difficult it is for students with an insufficient income stream to continue their higher education into graduate school:

"Put Grad School Within My Grasp"

Although I agree with the sentiments expressed in the article – I am hoping to get into a PhD program sometime in the near future, and worry about my ability to afford doing so – I think the issues surrounding higher education and those in the low-income bracket are more complex than is expressed in it. For example the author, Sui Lang Panoke, recommends the creation of a federal need-based program to assist graduate students based on merit and not on economic background. This point is well taken; a program that is blind to one's economic standing while basing desert on academic merit is a fair one. However, from personal experience, I know only two people who also intend to attend a graduate program, and share my socioeconomic background. So it is not only a matter of what your economic standing is at the point you decide to attend graduate school. Granted, the author's situation is a common difficulty that deserves attention, especially when considering non-funded masters programs. But my concern lies with getting individuals from a socioeconomic background that just about dictates against going to grad school, to want to go to grad school in the first place.

4 comments:

David U. said...

You kidding me? All that shit I wrote and the best point of discussion you bring to the table is that the article's author has a false sense of entitlement, because she's a single mother?! Why don't we argue down the slippery slope and say that any one who can't afford to go to school because of their circumstances should accept it and shut up? Does that sound agreeable to you?

Thorley Winston said...

All that shit I wrote and the best point of discussion you bring to the table is that the article's author has a false sense of entitlement, because she's a single mother?!

Sounds like an appropriate response to a whiner who complains that after she made her own life more difficult and apparently doesn’t have the chops to earn her way through life, she expects the rest of us to pay for her to get an advanced degree from an elite university to work for the government so she can “redistribute wealth” from the rest of us.

Neal McClusky does a pretty good job of .

David U. said...

I admit there are some glaring holes in the op-ed piece that takes away from the author's persuasiveness. I agree with Mr. McClusky's point that she should have provided more evidence to support her claims. I don't think I'd go so far as to say she doesn't have the chops to earn her way through life (her willingness to juggle a child, and a masters program suffices as evidence for that). Anyways, I'm gonna get back to rereading the just desert theories I've read in the past. Then I'll probably add a new post dealing with whether Ms. Panoke can justifiably make the claims she made...

David U. said...

By the way Thorley, that was far from an appropriate response.