The tyranny of a college diploma is hard to overcome

The world is run by the college educated. They govern us, run the corporations, make the rules. If you want to join them, you need a college diploma. Once considered a glowing achievement, it has become a requirement to get ahead in America. But what about those who can’t obtain one? The barriers are numerous and for many otherwise intelligent, employable people, insurmountable.

The problem starts as early as ninth grade when the Algebra requirement strips all hope from young people who think visually, have learning differences, or simply can’t wrap their brains around the abstract math. Remember, Albert Einstein failed at mathematics. Those who can jump this first hurdle can continue on a college track while four out of five teens who fail Algebra will drop out of high school. Eighty percent of drop-outs point to Algebra as one of the reasons they quit.

This problem is so severe that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has launched a “grand challenge” to address it. In the meantime we need to find a work-around so that young people are not derailed by a single subject.

College costs money. You might be able to get loans or even grants to cover most of your costs, piling up debt that you may never be able to pay off. But you will never get enough to cover all your costs. Those college loans can weigh you down for decades after you graduate or, worse, don’t graduate.

And who will support you while you study? Working is not a choice, but a necessity for most people. A part-time job doesn’t cut it when you are supporting yourself. This region has no public transportation so you need a car to attend.

On-line courses only work if you have reliable internet service. A college education is simply not possible for everyone.

We hear stories of heroic women who finished college while working two jobs and caring for their children. Do we ever stop to think about the toll this takes on the women and their children? We need to ask ourselves how many college requirements remain relevant in our adult lives.

We all know people who slipped through college without learning anything except how to cram for tests. Yet they are accepted as educated when autodidacts who learn for the love of it are not.

We need to expand alternatives to college like apprenticeships, trade schools and technical schools. We need to reduce the cost of education over all. We need to remove the stigma of the differently educated. We need to give people a chance to prove themselves without requiring a piece of paper to even get an interview.

People learn differently. We should not penalize them for their differences.

Lisa Wright divides her time between her home in Lakeville and Oblong Books in Millerton where she has worked for nearly 40 years. Email her at wrightales@gmail.com.