In the United States today, a system exists where rich, powerful, and knowledgable families are able to remain at the top of society by way of America’s educational system. Parents who possess a greater level of education see greater success in their family and professional lives, which provides their offspring with an easier route to higher education and thereby high social status.
There exists a plutocratic system, be it within government or education, where kids are too readily born in with assured success and where less privileged kids are troubled by a system that often relies far too little on merit. Although not the fault of rich families, those whom are well educated, leading successful professional lives are able to pass down benefits to their kin that enable them to have a leg up on the rest of the college applicant pool.
The United States government is one of only a few nations in the world that spends more on school districts in rich areas of the country than in poor ones. This creates a disparity among the quality of education that students receive immediately starting school-based on where they are born and to what type of family they’re born in to. These schools, due to greater funding, are able to provide their students with greater academic assets such as a wide array of extra curricular activities within athletics or the arts.
This is where things begin to become unfair; students born into districts that receive less funding do not have the ability to market themselves to a college recruiter the way their fellow student from a rich district can. And that’s thanks to the US government improperly distributing funds.
An article in The Economist titled “America’s New Aristocracy" perpetuates the notion that poor but clever kids are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to seeking out higher education. “The solution is not to discourage rich people from investing in their children, but to do a lot more to help clever kids who failed to pick posh parents.”
The author of this article suggests that the government ramps up its investment in early education, when the brain is most impressionable and hungry for knowledge.
“Improving early child care in the poorest American neighborhoods yields returns of ten to one or more; few other government investments pay off so handsomely,” the articles states.
Investing in areas where children are at the most fundamental stages of development would wholly benefit the quality of education those students would receive. If more kids who formerly would not have had the opportunity to have a strong educational foundation received a quality preschool or daycare education, they would more readily wish to continue into higher education, thereby increasing the quality of all university students.
What we need is a system that is based on merit; one that rewards the brightest up-and-coming students, not those who are able to afford an expensive Chinese tutor or are born with the last name of an alumnus. The author of The Economist piece says it best, “America’s universities need an injection of meritocracy.”
