We Must Free Our Minds and Hope Once Again

Oxford Academic
Sep 5, 2018 · 4 min read
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The following shortened extract from Making Education Work for the Poor by Willliam Elliott and Melinda Lewis explains possible ways to close the income gap and make the American dream achievable for all.

Today, as the UnitedStates contends with wealth inequality and its crushing effects on equitable chances of upward mobility, we need policy revolutions that can transcend mere reforms. While that prospect may seem daunting, particularly within the context of polarized national politics and entrenched opposing interests, it is certainly not the first such moment in our history. During the space race in the early 1960s, President John F. Kennedy articulated the nation’s desire to be the first to walk on the moon, saying, “I believe we possess all the resources and all the talents necessary. But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshalled the national resources required for such leadership”. These same words could be spoken today in reference to our uninspiring reliance on debt-dependent financing of higher educationandour apparent unwillingness to commit to closing the opportunity gap by creating institutions that equitably facilitate the success of all children.

To advance a vision of children’s savings policy up to the challenge of countering wealth inequality and rescuing the American Dream, we once again need to imagine the possibilities.

Only then will we be ableto dare to reach for what might seem to be the stars. If we are free to imagine what CSAs can be, $5,000 accounts for each child may seem quite modest in the face of vast wealth inequality and poor children’s inability to overcome their from-behind starts. If we consider what is possible instead of what seems immediately attainable, we might discover untapped sources of asset-building potential by unwinding regressive wealth building subsidies or abandoning financial aid policies with dubious returns. Our history reminds us that ours is a wealthy nation capable of mustering tremendous resources for the objectives we deem national prioritiesWe have marshalled national policymaking apparatuses to redress injustices and open doors of opportunity. We can do so again.

The path to the CSA policies that disadvantaged children so direly need will be difficult, but the American Dream is worth the fight. And the United States is at our best when we stretch toward what we want, rather than try to convince ourselves that we are content with what we have. As President Kennedy said of the space race, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win”. This exhortation holds lessons for our present challenge. It reminds us that, while securing the national policies we really need will not be easy, articulating a bold policy vision makes it more likely that we reach our distant goal. Reworking the mechanisms in state-supported 529 plans will not happen overnight. Obtaining funding so that wealth flows all along the opportunity pipeline will be harder than just laying the pipes. None of this, however, seems as daunting as flying to the moon must have seemed in 1961.

So, while we recognize that there are details to determine and allies to enlist, we suggest that revolutionizing financial aid in pursuit of equal opportunities begins with freeing our own minds from the constraints that limit our vision. We need to reimagine the possibilities when it comes to what Congress can accomplish with CSAs. We need to go beyond small-dollar accounts to make financial aid a true investment. We need to be unafraid to insist on the robust transfers on which poor children’s futures depend. We need to free our minds when it comes to the right questions to ask about return on degree and whether education as currently financed and delivered is really serving as an equalizer. We must free our minds so that we can dare to make a better future for our children and so that we can construct systems that will help them to expect this better future for themselves. If we ‘win’ we will have saved the American Dream from becoming just a story we tell ourselves about the way things used to be. And even if we do not — at least not now — we will have made valuable strides toward exposing how wealth inequality robs Americans of fair life chances and mobilizing an increasingly demoralized populace around children’s assets as a rescue for our imperiled Dream. Among the many lessons of our history, surely, is this: there is value in shooting for the moon.


William Elliott, PhD, MSW, is Professor and Director of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion (AEDI) at the School of Social Work, University of Michigan.

Melinda Lewis, MSW, is Associate Professor of Practice at the School of Social Welfare, University of Kansas, and also Assistant Director at the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion (AEDI).

Together, they authored Making Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children’s Savings Accounts.

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