Editorial: Education gap not national crisis

In cities across the country, the self-proclaimed 99 percent continues to rally against the… In cities across the country, the self-proclaimed 99 percent continues to rally against the growing income disparity between the rich and poor. But one writer believes these activists have failed to recognize a more problematic social divide: the education gap.

In a Monday op-ed piece, New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that educational inequality is in some ways more concerning than income inequality. People with a college degree, he says, constitute a singularly privileged socioeconomic class whose living conditions far outstrip those of their less-educated counterparts.

Brooks is right — according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, on average, degree-holders make 75 percent more money than those without. Furthermore, if the studies Brooks draws upon are to be believed, college graduates are much less likely to have a child out of wedlock, smoke, divorce or suffer from obesity. Most insidiously, the children of college graduates are more likely to successfully complete college than the children of those who didn’t.

Proclaiming this a gross injustice, however, may be premature.

Although college degrees are undoubtedly more marketable than high school degrees — and thus, increase your chances of becoming wealthy — we consider them indicators of upward mobility, not catalysts. If students have the determination and intelligence to graduate from a four-year institution, they almost certainly possess the skills needed to succeed later in life. Granted, it’s possible to graduate with mediocre grades, but a work ethic that permits such results will undermine any future attempts at prosperity.

Many might protest that college is an upper-middle-class luxury and that only a select few have a chance to excel in academia. In reality, this is an outdated perception: More and more people are joining the ranks of the college-educated. Over the past half-century, the number of college graduates in the United States has steadily increased. In 1960, only about 8 percent of Americans older than 25 held at least a bachelor’s degree. Today that percentage has risen to 29.9, according to the Census Bureau.

Of course, not everyone can afford to attend a four-year university, even with all the student loans currently available. Nonetheless, the disparity between college and high school graduates is easier to mend than the income gap that Occupy members have so outspokenly condemned, at least from a political standpoint. More financial aid and more funding for public universities will ensure that college educations and their benefits are more accessible.

We agree that the quality-of-life gap between college and high school graduates is unacceptably wide. But rather than deeming this a national crisis, we should realize that there are many unacknowledged factors contributing to this dilemma. When it comes to the education gap, solutions to inequality are much easier to attain.