A Local Voice: I am living proof that education is and still has the potential to be an equalizer
According to Cambridge Dictionary, an equalizer is a term primarily used in soccer to describe the point in a game or competition that gives both teams or players the same score. In theory, our education system works in the same manner, acting as a great equalizer to ensure that individuals from all walks of life have the ability to achieve great things. If you think about how some of our nation’s greatest minds were able to rise from the grips of poverty and despair to change the world, it was through the utilization of education.
I am living proof that education is and still has the potential to be an equalizer. I am a product of Milwaukee Public Schools and had the opportunity to take part in the PEOPLE program, which granted me a four-year scholarship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I now have two undergraduate degrees and work in an MPS school, trying to pay forward the guidance that was afforded to me. Unfortunately I see a trend emerging not only in the state of Wisconsin, but all across this country of not treating our higher education system with the importance it so deserves.
I graduated college with a manageable amount of student debt thanks to some lucky breaks in the form of scholarships. Unfortunately, some of the people I went to school with have not been as fortunate and have upwards of $30,000 in student loan debt. I have friends who have been very frugal, worked full time to pay for their education, and are still struggling to make their loan payments. Our current system has made people settle for less and effectively shackles our best and brightest minds into taking jobs only for the reason of paying off student loans. New graduates won’t go into fields they are passionate about because of the massive student debt they accrued over their college careers.
Unfortunately, it feels as though we have turned our backs on the original promise of this nation, which according to our founding fathers is of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If these students can’t go into fields that are fulfilling and ultimately make them happy, then are we really fulfilling the promise of this nation?
After $250 million in cuts to the UW-System, $53 million of which targets UW-Madison, students are being squeezed with fewer resources, larger class sizes, and are seeing the best professors leave the school due to these draconian cuts. Scott Walker and Republican politicians are making decisions about the UW-System without recognizing what a negative impact these cuts have had, and not caring that the UW-System is losing its reputation as the gold standard of public higher education in this country. I feel bad for the students who are being deprived of the things that make school worth going to, all because some people who don’t know them think they aren’t deserving of a quality education. Education should not be a commodity in this day and age, it should be a public good. In fact, it is arguably our greatest public good.
Us young people don’t want to hear Republicans preach about how they spent their summers working to pay off college, because frankly it’s impossible to do so in this day and age. The cost of college has risen over 1,100% just in the last decade or so. When the cost of a year of school is equivalent to about a year of salary at a full-time entry-level job, you’d have to be blind not to see that this is a huge problem that needs to be addressed. We can’t keep operating with our hands over our ears, refusing to hear the difficulties and struggles of everyday Americans. We cannot keep attributing these issues to a lack of work ethic, bad financial management, or poor decision-making.
We need to invest actual time and money into our higher education system. I want people to understand a solid education system strengthens our future and if we fail to make the proper investment we will see our country headed in the wrong direction. The longer we wait to address the student loan debt crisis and the crisis of secondary education in the state legislature, the more apparent it seems that the politicians who refuse to at least even attempt to solve issues that affect us on a daily basis don’t have our best interests at heart. We need to take a long, hard look at how we view higher education in this country and examine the true, tangible impact of those decisions.
Miles Brown is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is planning to go into education policy to ensure greater opportunities for all students in Wisconsin and in the US.
