"For Poor, Leap to College Often End in a Hard Fall"- Jason DeParle
This article highlights stories about three lower-income students from Galveston Texas. It accounts their struggles from family and school and how this affected them in college academically and socially. There are great insights in this article about what some thoughts are that are going through these students minds. Some barricades they face on the topic of higher education are vulnerability, disadvantage in the lack of knowledge, the standard of education growing up, and other family issues such as leaving their family behind and thinking they are better than the rest for pursuing and education.
Furthermore, this article combs over the more problematic issues these students face such as the income gap, guidance, the socio-economic ladder, enrichment activities provided before college, and having a "safety net". They explain how these aspects affect how lower income students face struggles that other students do not have to endure. We are even given detailed accounts about the financial aspects that these three students faced when enrolled at college and how ultimately, they fell behind because of the lack of knowledge the had and the fact they were doing it on their own. It became apparent that these students are faced with providing for themselves fully while maintaining their academics and this along with other factors pushed them over the end. This is partially the fact that because of financial aid difficulties they had substantial amounts of loans and couldn't keep their heads above water. In the end, even with all of their pursuits in college and to have an education these girls ended up with no degrees and mountains of loans to pay back.
Some important quotes include: "With little guidance form family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net". (2) This quote highlights the fact that many lower income students do not have the financial or emotional "safety net" that other more fortunate students do. This becomes an increasing problems because they do not have the knowledge that they need or the support to get through college, and if they do succeed and receive their diploma many struggle on the way there.
"It's becoming increasingly unlikely that a low-income student no matter how intrinsically bright, moves up the socioeconomic ladder". (3) This quote stands out because it is stating that children that are in low-income situations have little or no chance in improving life for themselves. This seems to be a circle of life that these students are facing and they don't know how to escape it. It is very disheartening to hear this statement.
"Schools may have also changed in ways that make parental income and education more important". (6) This quote is particularly interesting because students are already at a disadvantage when coming up from poorer educational systems and now that the era of technology has seeped into the educational network this puts them in a further gap from the more fortunate students.
This article is useful in exploring my research question because it gives inside information about what is happening to students that are coming from these situations. We need examples of this problem to explore what blockades they are facing and how this problem in holding them back. Without these accounts, we are only guessing at what problems are currently being faced and what can be done to divert it.
Jason DeParle, the author of this article of this article, is a senior writer at the New York Times and been a finalist multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize and won the George Polk award for his writing of the welfare system. This graduate from Duke University seems intent on focusing about the struggles that families face form lower-economic standpoints.
Jason Deparle; Kitty Bennett Contributed. “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 23. Dec. 2012. Web. 26 Feb.2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education>.
