Want the American Dream? Get Rich Parents or Move to Canada

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/want-american-dream-get-rich-parents-or-move-canada



Two 21-year-old college students sit down in a coffee shop to study for an upcoming test. Behind the counter, a barista whips up their double-shot lattes. In the back kitchen, another young adult washes the dishes and empties the trash.

These four young adults have a lot in common. They are the same age and race, each has two parents, and all grew up in the same metropolitan area. They were all strong students in their respective high schools. But as they enter their third decade, their work futures and life trajectories are radically different—and largely determined at this point.

The culprit is the growing role of inherited advantage, as affluent families make investments that give their children a leg up. Combined with the 2008 economic meltdown and budget cuts in public investments that foster opportunity, we are witnessing accelerating advantages for the wealthy and compounding disadvantages for everyone else.

One of the college students, Miranda, will graduate without any student-loan debt and will have completed three summers of unpaid internships at businesses that will advance her career path. Her parents stand ready to subsidize her lodging with a security deposit and co-signed apartment lease and will give her a no-interest loan to buy a car. They also have a network of family and professional contacts that can help her. While she waits for a job with benefits, she will remain on her parents’ health insurance.

[Scuba]

1. Kick. More ...

A key determinant in these diverging prospects is the role of family wealth, a factor that plays an oversize role in sorting today’s coming-of-age generation onto different opportunity trajectories. The initial sort begins much earlier. A growing mountain of research chronicles what sociologists call the “intergenerational transmission of advantage,” including the myriad mechanisms by which affluent families boost their children’s prospects starting at birth. The mechanisms include financial investments in their children’s enrichment, school readiness, formal schooling, college access, and aiding the transition to work. Meanwhile, the children in families unable to make these investments fall further behind.

[newfie11]

2. This is why free college is so important

My dad (IBEW electrician) passed away when I was 18. No life insurance and my mom was a homemaker with no other skills. That was in Texas.

We moved to Los Angeles where my brother lived. I was able to attend free college and found a job in my field. I worked in that field for 40 years ( medical).

If it had not been for free college I would have been one working at McDonalds forever.

[geckosfeet]

3. Free, or the availability of affordable loans and grants for tuition

I went to SUNY (State UNiversity of New York) schools when (post Kennedy/Johnson era) there were actually low/no interest (2-3%) loans available that were mandated and subsidized by the federal government. No interest or payments until 6 months after graduation or you were done with school for post grad. Not to mention all the tuition grants etc. available to students from low income families.

There was a time when this country valued and encouraged education over bank profits. Nowadays we rake students over the coals with loan interest, and provide interest free loans to banks.

[newfie11]

13. No grants

I went to a JC (LACC) and total for each semester was $6.50. Of course I had to buy books but those were mostly used. In the 60's a college education in California for residents was very cheap. After that I was paid a stipend while doing clinicals. This is no longer done.
My brother worked his way through San Diego State and post grad at UCLA to get his PHD. He also had the GI Bill.
I would bet it is not possible to do that at the prices of college today sadly.

[Hekate]

25. So did I. Students often can't even buy used textbooks any more

Especially the technical ones with a CD in an envelope inside the book. Publishers have the student population over a barrel.

The latest tease is that you can save a few dollars by purchasing e-textbooks. Of course those can never be resold, either, and when hard copy texts are no longer available the publishers will have no incentive at all to keep prices down.

Reading that article is making me sick. I know it's bad out there. My husband retired last year from teaching Computer Information Systems at the local community college. No, what we did in the 1960s is no longer possible.

You and I worked our way through and came out debt free. I had a resume of low-wage jobs, which was no help, but at least I didn't have the burden of student loans.

[newfie11]

38. That's terrible, I can't imagine the price of new books today

Kids graduating with student loans worth more than my house, what a way to start out in life.
Then there is the threat of jobs being moved out of the country. Bankruptcy doesn't apply to student loans.

This is a scary.

[MissB]

32. My son wants to take a class at the local CC this summer.

$88 a credit, and its a five credit class. Plus fees. And three entrance exams.

It's easier for him to enroll in the local state university and take the class. Even with fees, the cost is only slightly more.

[newfie11]

37. Your son and others coming up are the future of this country

It is unbelievable what is happening to education here.
Jobs that used to be taught on the job are either moving out of the country or a degree is needed.

[whathehell]

5. Just wondering...

If your dad was an IBEW electrician, didn't the union provide anything after his death?

I'm asking because I've heard that some do.

Paul Ryan's father died when he was a teenager, and he was able to collect SS benefits.

Would those have been available to you?

[newfie11]

11. The union did give my mom $250.00

And yes I did get SS.

[whathehell]

12. Wouldn't the Social Security have at least helped

you out of being a lifer at Mickey D's ?

I'm just wondering, because that's what Paul Ryan saved for his college expenses.

[newfie11]

14. Lol

He must have got a lot more than I did.

[whathehell]

16. That bad, huh?

[newfie11]

18. I can't remember the exact amount

But it wasn't much and I only could draw it 2.5 years once I got on it. It stops at 21 or it did then.
It helped and I worked also but I could never have done it with today's tuition costs.

[whathehell]

20. Oh, definitely not with today's tuition costs...I get that. n/t

[HiPointDem]

21. There used to be an SS college benefit for all dependent children of beneficiaries.

I know because my brother got it. and it was reasonably substantial because when he quit attending classes, the gov't wanted the money back & he was in deep shit at home.

I'd bet that's what ryan's talking about as well.

Taken out under reagan.

[newfie11]

22. I bet it is

I didn't know anything about that.

[HiPointDem]

24. yeah, it's getting hard to believe such things ever existed in these times. but they did, and not

so long ago.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

35. You know Ryan's family is wealthy, yes?

[whathehell]

36. I wasn't sure...I'd heard that he was, but then wondered why

he'd have to save his SS benefits to go to school if that were so.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

39. "have to" is the operative phrase here.

He didn't "have to" save that money or need it for his education (he doesn't include that in his rags to riches story). But like a good little ripig, he glommed his and wants YOU and YOURS to go without should you ever actually NEED it.

This is his family company:

http://www.ryancentral.com/history.html

Money and power/politics from way back:

One of Ryan's paternal ancestors settled in Wisconsin prior to the Civil War.[15] His great-grandfather, Patrick William Ryan (1858–1917), founded an earthmoving company in 1884, which later became P. W. Ryan and Sons and is now known as Ryan Incorporated Central.[16][17] Ryan's grandfather was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin by President Calvin Coolidge.[18]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ryan

[whathehell]

40. Yes, that appears to be the case.

Thanks for the information, and for clearing up my fuzzy view of his background.


He certainly is an A1 Republican Prick.

[MADem]

27. I don't agree.

People often don't think something they are given for free is valuable.

I do think that college should be AFFORDABLE, and there ought to be loans made readily available, along with work for lodging schemes, as well as a public service option where people can pay down their college debt after graduation by taking a job in underserved/hardship regions and areas.

[HiPointDem]

29. nyc had free college for ages, and california had near free college, and the people who benefited

certainly valued it.

the value people place on public goods has nothing to do with whether they're 'free' or not, but with how they are socialized.

currently a sit-in going on at one of the last 'free' colleges in nyc: the students value it enough to sit in for weeks, and it's not for themselves (their education is already assured), it's for future students:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/nyregion/cooper-union-protesters-living-high-life-out-of-presidents-office.html?_r=0

Cooper Union has been 'free' for 150 years. None of the students valued it, in your estimation?

[MADem]

30. I'm not saying it should be over-the-top expensive, I think it should

be affordable.

And not every student is going to get to attend Cooper Union--in fact, most will never go near the place. Most will be lucky to pay for a local community college experience, or a state school...and there's nothing wrong with those--sometimes I think the state teachers care more than those at private schools.

People 'back in the day' were more appreciative of the opportunity afforded by any advanced education (and by 'advanced,' I mean past the 4th Grade); qualifying for it was, in and of itself, a real prize. Being able to attend any schooling--and not being pulled out by parents and set to work--was akin to a miracle.

I just don't think that intensity of appreciation is held by many students today. It's like basic cable...it's "Meh." If it has a price tag on it, it becomes a thing of value--even if scholarships are offered or low cost loans are provided to students. I think the students investing in themselves, even nominally, makes a difference in how they approach the process.

Unless we're proposing adding on to the high school experience--and I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that, either. I know plenty of kids who aren't fully adults at age 18 (or even age 25) and could do with two years of additional schooling while they continue to work on their maturation.

Perhaps the "associate's degree" should become the new "high school diploma?"

[HiPointDem]

31. that people 'back in the day' appreciated it demonstrates that being free doesn't make goods

necessarily unappreciated.

nothing to do with price, but to do with how people are socialised.

[MADem]

33. Well, back in the day, someone DID pay.

Someone had to bring home the bacon that little Fauntleroy wasn't earning as a consequence of going to school, assuming the kid was in public or free school. So someone took a little job on the weekend or worked after hours for a few bucks. After all, not only do the bills need paying, there's shoes, clothes, and food that needs buying, too--a student doesn't live on learning alone.

If a student was in religious school, then the church paid, and they probably wanted some sort of payback--altar boy work, or Maw cleaning the church.

There were no free rides even back then. Unless people were rich, education involved sacrifice at some level.

[HiPointDem]

34. plenty of students lived on their own, and paid for their own lodging and food.

did bella abzug, ruby dee, jonas salk, or shirley chisholm's parents pay for their room & board while those spoiled 'little fauntleroy's' were attending cuny?

is that somehow more terrible than taking out student loans at 6-8% and paying on them for half the rest of one's life?

no idea what your point is. of course there is cost, even where tuition is free.

[MADem]

43. The Little Fauntleroys I was talking about were fifth graders.

They weren't living in apartments. They were expected to quit school and get their asses into the factories to WORK to help support the family.

When someone left home, they took stress OFF the family. One less mouth to feed, one less back to clothe. It's why Joe Moakley joined the Navy--three hots and a cot, and to take a bit of the pressure off his parents.

My point is that things that require a bit of personal investment are valued. Things that are handed to people free are not. I do not think this personal investment should be spirit crushing or onerous, and I also think campus housing, for those going to school full time, is a good esprit de corps builder.

And I really wish you would just read what people write before you get all hot breathed and hectoring with a dramatic response. Talk about a straw man! What part of the word AFFORDABLE is unclear to you? How can I help you come to an understanding that "affordable" does not mean expensive tuition, nor does it mean "high interest rate" or "paying on them for half of the rest of one's life..."

That kind of loan expenditure is the OPPOSITE of "affordable." Most would call that "usurious." What I advocate is AFFORDABLE tuitions, with payback forgiveness options for public service. Where do you get huge interest rates and loan service for half a lifetime from that? Please, eluciate!

[HiPointDem]

44. you made a claim: that people didn't appreciate free goods. i said that is not necessarily

the case, it depends on how people are socialized.

which is clearly true. but still you throw up diversionary smoke.

[Zoeisright]

46. I don't agree.

Do you think people think education up to grade 12 is not valuable? College teaches people how to THINK. And we need many more people who can think and reason in this country. Because logical reasoning ability is becoming rare.

[MADem]

48. You do realize we pay for that.

It comes out of property taxes; and even renters pay those indirectly through rents to their landlords. It's there whether one uses it, or not, because that's the way our society is set up, to provide for 'public' schools.

Nothing is free, at the end of the day. If you can figure out an income stream to support a post-secondary "free" education, we can talk. I doubt--strongly--that the American public will support blanket post-secondary education for all. It means taxes go up, and they go up--as they always do, on the middle class first. And the people who get fucked, royally, are the people at the lower limits of that middle class, who are unlikely to stand by as the state takes a few more hundred out of their wallets that they don't have.

States here and there have tried to go the free for all route, and they can't sustain it. Many do have "need grants" for the very poor, but that must be applied for and is not guaranteed. There are a few schools here and there that have "work-for-education" schemes, but they are few and far between.

Right now, the population isn't prepared to take on the added expense of two to four more years of subsidized education. Hell, they're trying to cut K-12 expenditures, in case you haven't noticed. As the rate of Dual Income/No Kids (DINKs) and singles with no children grows, I wouldn't be surprised if there is push-back in the opposite direction where people without children become more vociferous about additional expenditures for education. From my perspective, I have no problem with supporting teachers and strong public schools, but I do think there's a point in time where children have to realize that stuff costs money. College is as good a time as any, and it doesn't have to be a bone-crushing expense.

When I went to school in the dark ages, everyone took P.E., art, music, industrial arts or home-making, and these weren't "optional." Optional activities included after-school clubs and sports. Parents didn't have to pay extra for "supplies." The community paid. This isn't the paradigm today--those programs are cut to the bone.

I think we might want to return to a more fulsome Pre K-12 education structure before we start trying to fund college where the student, ostensibly a "young adult," doesn't have an economic investment in their own education. That's part of growing up, too. When you're a little kid, your folks pay. When you're grown, you pay. It doesn't have to be an onerous amount, either--just enough to make it real, and not too much that it can't be paid back in a reasonable amount of time.

[pampango]

4. From the article: in the US social mobility has decreased, in Canada and Europe it has increased.

The United States prides itself on being a socially mobile society where what one does is more important than the racial and class circumstances of one’s birth. Indeed, in the three decades after World War II, between 1947 and 1977, social mobility increased, particularly for the white working class. This imprinted a national self-identity as a meritocratic society, especially juxtaposed with the old “caste societies” of Europe, with their static class systems and calcified social mobility.

That story of European versus U.S. social mobility has now been turned on its head. European nations and Canada, with their social safety nets and investments in early childhood education, are experiencing greater social mobility. Canada now has three times the social mobility of the U.S. Budget cuts at all levels of government have dismantled post–World War II public investments that had begun to create greater opportunities for economically and racially disadvantaged families. Higher education has taken one of the biggest hits. Meanwhile, the relative advantage of wealthy families, in terms of social capital and civic engagement, has accelerated over the past 30 years.

Sustained public investments in opportunity are critical to level a playing field that is constantly being upended by wealth advantage. We can’t remove the capacity of well-off families to help advantage their offspring, but we can give others more of a shot.

Other industrialized countries have demonstrated that public investments in health, education, and family well-being can offset the private advantages of wealth and improve social mobility. Initiatives like the “Baby College” of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Head Start, the U.S.’s Nurse-Family Partnership program, and universal preschool programs, such as those in France and Denmark, partially close the gaps in school achievement and subsequent wages. Several of these initiatives coach new parents on childhood health and wellness, discipline, brain development, and games and enrichment resources available to their children.

[HiPointDem]

23. harlem children's zone isn't a 'public investment'. it's part of education deform & privatization.

it gets public money now but it was an initiative of the superrich and they provided the start-up capital and continue to fund about 22% of its budget.

it's a charter school.

[Generic Other]

6. One thing is certain

when a poor smart kid gets ahead in this economy, it is because they are examples of American exceptionalism because they win in spite of the hurdles set in their path.

The hungry kid built America. The spoiled rich kid does nothing, impresses no one. I think of the difference between Bill Clinton and his daughter. His achievements are impressive. Hers not at all. She had everything handed to her. He clawed his way out of poverty and moved up the ladder through his own sweat and investment in himself.

Sorry, the rich girl who had it all handed to her will probably do nothing with what she has been given. She'll become Barbara Bush with her "beautiful" mind. The poor kid who is given nothing will amazingly make something of it. That kid will earn my respect. The rich girl will marry Bernie Madoff and whine when her gravy train is cut off because he goes to jail for ripping off people. The trophy wife will be unable to care for herself after that. Lucky for her she has inherited wealth. She will need it. Go visit her a few years later when she hits 50. She'll be living like the crazy Beales at Grey Gables. Fuck the rich and their sense of entitlement. They have all the money for endless enrichment/education for their kids who mostly seem to grow up to lack character -- because it has no value to them. The Mitt Romney's of the world certainly illustrate that point.

[closeupready]

47. Boy, did you just describe the 'hipsters' who populate my nabe,

To. A. Tee.

Spend so much time and money getting high, sleeping around and lunching al fresco at restaurants rather than do something useful.

[HughBeaumont]

7. "What are you going to DO, suckers? You NEED this piece of paper to even get yer foot in the door!"

People don't seem to realize what a giant red flag problem an inaccessible education (due primarily to cost) is. This really cannot be about "if you want it bad enough, you'll find a way". You know, we really have no time or resources for Horatio Alger reliance in 2013. The clock really needs to be turned back on this, lest we want a nation run by me-first individuals who think primitive humans rode dinosaurs side-saddle.

[xchrom]

8. +1

[TrogL]

9. Access to tutoring

Another factor is access to help outside the classroom. Wealthy parents can afford to have a tutor come in or at least be able to lend z hand with homework. Latchkey kids have nobody.

Another factor is access to a discipline be it a martial art or music. This extra level of required concentration of effort is not available in the regular classroom.

[JDPriestly]

10. A must read.

I become aware of this when I travel. It is then that I watch the more upwardly mobile and well positioned parents interact with their children. When I am at home, especially in my local supermarket, I see the downwardly mobile and stuck with their children. What a difference. The article explains. The upwardly mobile explain the world to their children and help them through. The downwardly mobile and stuck seem to talk less to their children. The settings are different, I know -- an airport or airplane and a supermarket -- but still, just listen to the conversations -- the vocabulary level, the attitude toward acquiring information, the degree of trust between parent and child, the kinds of toys or food that are provided to the child. It's like two different worlds.

And of course, when children do not get high scores or are not ready for school, the teachers get blamed. And that makes it even harder on the children with lower income parents. Of course, lots of parents do a really good job with their children even though they don't have a lot of money.

But it used to be easier. Libraries used to be better integrated into communities. (Remember bookmobiles in cities?) Schools were better funded and provided enrichment programs like art and music. Now that is gone. And the parents with low incomes are frustrated. They don't understand what is going on, why their children are not catching up. That makes them very vulnerable to the charter school sales talk. But the article describes quite clearly why just sending your child to a private school cannot make up for the gap between the average child growing up in a poor family and the average child growing up in affluence.

This is an important article.

[CanSocDem]

19. Indeed.

It's been a sad journey watching the core values of western culture between 1947 and 1977. Those are my years, from my birth to my realization that it 'ain't gonna happen'.

After that it was simply staying above water while vainly trying to live a personal version of pre-1977 socio-political idealism. Watching hallowed institution, one after the other, fall victim to the ravages of capitalism has been painful but surely not unexpected. We used to joke around in the early '70's, about what it would be like if the oil companies ran the government. The things we laughed about have all come true. It's spooky.

Staying Cynical is the new way to Staying Fit.

.

[hfojvt]

15. so the Mackenzie brothers had it right all those years ago

it really IS a beauty way to go

[PasadenaTrudy]

42. Take off, ya hoser ;) n/t

[alp227]

17. Reminds me of this right winger who called Thom Hartmann

At 1:55 mark after the two argued about right to work (for less) laws Thom asked "How do workers have the power to balance organized money if they don't have the power to organize themselves?"

caller: "Very easy. Be a good worker."

Sadly in the post Reagan era way too many people have been conditioned to buy into the Horatio Alger myth rather than stand up for their rights.

[grasswire]

26. kick to read later nt

[MADem]

28. Canada isn't looking for immigrants without skills. You've got to bring something to the table

in order to get in--either a specific skill or a willingness and ability to work hard in a needed sector and contribute to the economy, or a ton of money, enough to start a business and contribute to the economy. They don't want people who think they're going to waltz in and take advantage of their social programs.

[Laelth]

41. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[closeupready]

45. I'd love to. Worth considering, IMO - I love Canada.