Unraveling the U.S. Middle Class

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Interest rates on student loans, including on popular federal programs like the unsubsidized Stafford (now nearly 7 percent) and Parent Plus (8.5 percent), are running several percentage points higher than the rates on secured loans, like home equity lines of credit.

“The difference of rates between secured and unsecured loans is higher than I have ever seen,” said Scott White, director of counseling services at Westfield High School in New Jersey. “This is one further impediment to access to post-secondary education for all but the well-to-do.”

Judy Campbell, Brennan’s guidance counselor at Hollywood High School, where three of every four students qualify for a free or reduced-price lunch, suggested that his family was “not poor enough for need-based aid and not rich enough to write a check.”

When asked over dinner whether she felt guilty that Brennan had taken so much upon himself, his mother, Caryn, began to cry. “We didn’t expect to end up in this situation,” she said.

Goal Is College. Hurdle Is Finding Financial Aid, New York Times, JACQUES STEINBERG, April 30, 2009

Americans take the middle class society of the last half-century for granted, assuming that if “the economy” is prosperous then “most of us” will be prosperous. It’s not surprising, since “most of us” have never known any other culture /economy (unless you are older than 60 or even 70) and few have been overseas.

In fact, there is no real reason why the U.S. economy can’t become something else. We could become a society permanently and sharply split between cultural and financial haves and have not’s, with little in-between. As long as we buy into Reagan’s first principal (“government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem”) this is the risk we take.

Markets, left to themselves, will concentrate the wealth of a society in smaller and smaller groups. The ideals of a democracy make it clear that this concentration of wealth is unproductive at best and dangerous at worst. So we need the government (among others) to counter this concentration.

There are all sorts of ways to do this, from the income tax (minus the loop holes that make it so regressive) to inheritance taxes to educational funding. The conservative focus on Regan’s aphorism, then, has only ensured that the United States has become progressively less democratic.

Cheap, accessible education is not a luxury to be set aside until the economic crisis is over. A recession will shift capital in all sorts of ways but it will not prevent the ongoing concentration of wealth and power. If we don’t drive down the cost of education, and make more (non-loan) money available for students, Obama’s election won’t mean a thing.

Posted in: Composition, Economics, Professional

That Vision Thing

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The need for a new dynamic sector to generate an economic recovery is a perfect opportunity to promote high-speed rail and alternative energy research (and in far greater quantities than the Obama administration is proposing). Our banking system is being rescued with public money. Why shouldn’t the public get something in return for that, like publicly or cooperatively owned financial institutions that could provide customers with low-cost services and communities with economic development funds? And with the housing market not likely to recover for at least several years, why not experiment with different models of ownership? For example, instead of foreclosing on houses, why not turn them into limited-equity co-ops, which take the speculative motive out of that essential of life? These things won’t happen spontaneously; they need state action, prodded by organized and thoughtful activism. The public isn’t with us yet, but we’re a long way from the days when The Market seemed like a fresh idea.

A Post-Capitalist Future is Possible, Reimagining Socialism: A Nation Forum; Doug Henwood

Doug Henwood has a good sense of the timidity of the Obama administration. I think he’s right, too, the the problems is a lack of comprehensive vision on the left. It’s the same frustrations I have with academia. We should do more than create open source textbooks; we need to challenge the education industry.

It may be that too many people feel they have too much invested in the current system. I think, though, that any comprehensive vision of a post-capitalist system should begin with the work-week. That should be the strategic focus. We need a step by step plan to go from 40 to 35 to 30 hours.

I think that freedom from capitalism, to the extent it is possible, begins with a shortened work week and longer vacations. The goal ought to be the creation of a post-capitalist culture; literally, we need people who have better things to do. As long as we all running on the rat-wheel, we can hardly think, much less act.

Posted in: Composition, Language, Writing

Wikipedia Wins Again!

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And what has been surprising in students’ attitudes toward Wikipedia? Though my evidence is anecdotal, in the years of teaching with Wikipedia I have found almost no difference in the range of opinions about Wikipedia held by student writers and those held by their – mostly – older teachers. I find that roughly the same proportion of people have concerns about reliability, open access, and information literacy among students and faculty, just as I find roughly the same number of enthusiastic adopters among teachers and students. But when I query reluctant students about how and where they formed their negative opinions about Wikipedia, they usually point to a classroom environment where they were penalized for using it as a source. They almost never have had an experience which encouraged them to move from simply using Wikipedia to writing for it. As we move from seeing Wikipedia as only a resource to an online intellectual community, students are more than ready to accompany us.

Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing?, March 12, 2009, Robert E. Cummings

The case against Wikipedia, like too many things in academia, is more than a little specious, often dependent on a kind of willful ignorance. I knew a professor once who hated Wikipedia so much that he learned to post to it, just so that he could put in false information.

He’d then give his students a simple research task, knowing that most would go to Wikipedia and get the false information he had planted. When they told him what they had found, he’d go, “A HA! You went to Wikipedia didn’t you!” He had nothing to teach, just “don’t use Wikipedia.”

Cummings presents a clear outline of why this sort of thing– besides the ethical implications– represents a wasted opportunity in several directions. Most importantly, it misses a chance to teach students about writing, the production of knowledge, and audiences, among other things.

It also misses the opportunity to continue to develop Wikipedia as both an source of knowledge and a community of writers and knowledge builders. I think some students might find this process so compelling they would become committed Wikipedians. That’s a social good in itself.

I think, though, that Cummings (and the rest of us technology and writing lovers) have to go further than developing arguments in favor of new writing forms. We need an entire range of critical judgments that would allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I think someone like Cummings should write a piece called, “Why I Don’t Have Students Compose Videos in First Year Writing,” or “Why I Don’t Think Twitter is Appropriate in Advanced Composition.” We don’t have to agree on every point, of course, but we need the debate if we are ever going to defeat the Luddites.

Posted in: Composition, Professional, Writing

The Mystery of the Disappearing Student

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Among online students who dropped out of their degree or certificate programs, 40 percent failed to seek any help or resources before abandoning their programs, according to a recent EducationDynamics survey. Conducted in November 2008 among about 150 respondents who visited EducationDynamics’ sites eLearners.com and EarnMyDegree.com, the survey was designed to identify students’ motivations for deserting their online degree or certificate programs.

Financial challenges (41 percent) proved to be the main contributor to student attrition, followed by life events (32 percent), health issues (23 percent), lack of personal motivation (21 percent), and lack of faculty interaction (21 percent). Nearly half (47 percent) of students who dropped out did so even before completing one online course.

Survey Reports Many Online Learners Never Seek Help Before Dropping Out, Dian Schaffhauser, 1/09/09

This is one of those studies that seems to confirm the obvious and to deepen a kind of mystery. As an online teacher, I see this phenomena all of the time. Students sign up but don’t show up. They start a class but don’t finish. At one online school, I had classes in which almost half of all students routinely disappeared.

Most often they do this without any notification to me, although in some cases I know they have spoken to advisers or financial aid administrators. I’m certain this has to do with class, both economically and culturally. As the survey notes, money is the most important reason, followed closely by life events.

Almost all of these problems, though, suggest that many online students lack the cultural capital that middle class students take for granted. The one that strikes me as most important is the sense that a professor is someone you can talk to if you have problems. Professors often don’t feel approachable, even when they work at it.

My dad had a college degree, but my mom didn’t; when I first went to college I have never seen a campus before, and certainly never met a professor. Like a lot of people, I had professors who went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. Still, it took years before I felt comfortable enough to talk to them.

I am not sure how we can fix this in an online classroom, although calling students at the start of the session seems to help. Somehow, though, we have to encourage students to see us as allies rather than arbitrary authorities. It’s a particular challenge in a writing class because students are also dealing with criticism, often for the first time.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Composition, Economics, Professional