Poverty is such a difficult and insidious issue. Once you're poor, it's very hard to get out of poverty. Being poor is very expensive for society as a whole, given that poverty correlates strongly with all kinds of other negative things (poor physical and mental health, certain kinds of crime, unstable family conditions etc). And it is often hereditary.
This college seems like it's doing amazing things, but I will never understand why first world countries don't make poverty reduction a bigger priority :(
> Amarillo College, in Texas, is working hard to accommodate low-income students
such as by offering to pay vehicle-repair bills for families with only one car, reimbursing (through federal grants) baby-sitting bills, having 8 week mini-semesters, having administrators simulate homelessness so they can better help their students etc.
The "only one car problem" is pretty big. It is generally not kept in good repair (preventative costs go out the windows when you are poor) and the loss of transportation is often a job ending event. I used this to help put together a rural health grant (Dr & Mobile Unit comes to you). It was interesting. Obviously, the places where it hits hardest don't have public transportation.
I would be interested what federal grant they received that allowed them to reimburse baby-sitting. This is one of the most difficult areas to fund. Even with Head Start and Early Head Start, it is often a chore to get enough slots for college students.
One thing they don't seem to have a problem with that other schools do is attracting teachers. The accreditation committees have raised the requirements for college teachers and this cuts down the pool and also increases costs where they could go to other programs.
Modern-day college is a huge rip-off, especially book sales.
I'm waiting for a really progressive college to take MOOCs and make a degree program for the masses, one that carries enough prestige to be comparable. Hopefully, that day will come soon.
The woman profiled has six children. The government cannot afford to meet all the financial needs of people who have large families and then decide they want a college degree.
I think you are missing the subtle point that helping the woman profiled get a college degree also helps her six children have better outcomes in life:
> And when parents get more education, their children tend to do better [0], not only in school but in all sorts of health outcomes.
I can understand your desire not to provide material support for people who decide to have large families, but surely her six children made no such decision? To me, helping these kids’ mother complete a college degree seems like an exceptionally cheap intervention — especially since that money comes from a private foundation (the Amarillo College Foundation) and not the government itself.
But granted, I don’t know the magnitude of the positive effect on the kids.
I am sorry but I disagree with you a little even though I mostly agree with you.
I sincerely believe people who have more than one child (perhaps with exceptions for natural twins and so on which I assume is rare) ought to be increasingly more responsible for their children. Once you have a hockey team over several years (not one of those rare cases of twins or triplets) I am honestly able to look at someone's eyes and say "you're on your own, buddy". However, that is besides the point.
The point is that we can reduce the cost of college. It is already absurd that state universities have to compete against the likes of Colgate and Colorado College. We can and must reduce regulatory burden on our state schools while requiring drastic cutdowns in spending on non-essentials. We don't need a big football team in any state school. We don't need an athletic complex. Strip away anything that isn't related to actual education or scientific research. No school has an airport. No school has a rocket launch pad. Why do we need multi-million dollar sports centers or dormitories? Why do we need a police force? Cut pay for all administration and force them to be at or below the pay for a tenured professor. In fact, get rid of most of the administration. A lot of the things they do is simply not the job of an educational institution. If the likes of Harvard and Yale want to do those things they are more than welcome. However, keeping costs low should be a primary concern for state schools and we should empower as well as require them to do so.
In Australia you could be on around $500 pp (if you don’t live as a dependant) a fortnight paid all year (even on holiday) +2k p/y for books and the degree itself you start paying back only after you earn 40k.
She would get more from having dependants, it’s definitely super tough but doable if you can work during break with the ~$20 min wage as it wouldn’t affect payments.
Although it sucks seeing a University doing all this the silver lining really is that the worst bits of America really do bring out the best in these people that help.
I see your point and would be more sympathetic to it if we had proper sex education in k-12 and made birth control and abortions easier to obtain for poor people. Even so, clearly this lady made some poor choices.
The government has been increasingly effective at making it difficult to make logical choices on safe sex and pregnancy. The same, usually conservative, politicians that think these women shouldn't be having large families also don't want abortion clinics available nor do they want easily accessible birth control.
The US already suffers from a declining birthrate, to the point where we almost rely on immigration to maintain population growth. And in the wake of the Trump Administration, that seems to be declining.
Unless you embrace immigration or natalism (or both), your (age) demographic story is not going to look good in 20-30 years.
In the long run, people with no children, on average, cost more than people who raise several taxpayers into adulthood. People are entitled to several times what they put in to the social security system. That money comes from somewhere. And, for the childless, that's other peoples' kids, mostly.
[+] [-] Tharkun|7 years ago|reply
This college seems like it's doing amazing things, but I will never understand why first world countries don't make poverty reduction a bigger priority :(
[+] [-] paulddraper|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Poverty
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Frontier
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society
[+] [-] Karishma1234|7 years ago|reply
What % of people born in poverty are not poor by the time they are 30 ? Does anyone have that number ?
My intuition is that the number is higher.
[+] [-] ogennadi|7 years ago|reply
such as by offering to pay vehicle-repair bills for families with only one car, reimbursing (through federal grants) baby-sitting bills, having 8 week mini-semesters, having administrators simulate homelessness so they can better help their students etc.
[+] [-] protomyth|7 years ago|reply
The "only one car problem" is pretty big. It is generally not kept in good repair (preventative costs go out the windows when you are poor) and the loss of transportation is often a job ending event. I used this to help put together a rural health grant (Dr & Mobile Unit comes to you). It was interesting. Obviously, the places where it hits hardest don't have public transportation.
I would be interested what federal grant they received that allowed them to reimburse baby-sitting. This is one of the most difficult areas to fund. Even with Head Start and Early Head Start, it is often a chore to get enough slots for college students.
One thing they don't seem to have a problem with that other schools do is attracting teachers. The accreditation committees have raised the requirements for college teachers and this cuts down the pool and also increases costs where they could go to other programs.
[+] [-] RickJWagner|7 years ago|reply
I'm waiting for a really progressive college to take MOOCs and make a degree program for the masses, one that carries enough prestige to be comparable. Hopefully, that day will come soon.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] poster123|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zamfi|7 years ago|reply
> And when parents get more education, their children tend to do better [0], not only in school but in all sorts of health outcomes.
[0]: https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/parental-education/
I can understand your desire not to provide material support for people who decide to have large families, but surely her six children made no such decision? To me, helping these kids’ mother complete a college degree seems like an exceptionally cheap intervention — especially since that money comes from a private foundation (the Amarillo College Foundation) and not the government itself.
But granted, I don’t know the magnitude of the positive effect on the kids.
[+] [-] mcny|7 years ago|reply
I sincerely believe people who have more than one child (perhaps with exceptions for natural twins and so on which I assume is rare) ought to be increasingly more responsible for their children. Once you have a hockey team over several years (not one of those rare cases of twins or triplets) I am honestly able to look at someone's eyes and say "you're on your own, buddy". However, that is besides the point.
The point is that we can reduce the cost of college. It is already absurd that state universities have to compete against the likes of Colgate and Colorado College. We can and must reduce regulatory burden on our state schools while requiring drastic cutdowns in spending on non-essentials. We don't need a big football team in any state school. We don't need an athletic complex. Strip away anything that isn't related to actual education or scientific research. No school has an airport. No school has a rocket launch pad. Why do we need multi-million dollar sports centers or dormitories? Why do we need a police force? Cut pay for all administration and force them to be at or below the pay for a tenured professor. In fact, get rid of most of the administration. A lot of the things they do is simply not the job of an educational institution. If the likes of Harvard and Yale want to do those things they are more than welcome. However, keeping costs low should be a primary concern for state schools and we should empower as well as require them to do so.
[+] [-] aplummer|7 years ago|reply
She would get more from having dependants, it’s definitely super tough but doable if you can work during break with the ~$20 min wage as it wouldn’t affect payments.
Although it sucks seeing a University doing all this the silver lining really is that the worst bits of America really do bring out the best in these people that help.
[+] [-] sykh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yardie|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spamizbad|7 years ago|reply
Unless you embrace immigration or natalism (or both), your (age) demographic story is not going to look good in 20-30 years.
[+] [-] jabgrabdthrow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] humanrebar|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] caio1982|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnnyConatus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dragory|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply