Education: The Great (Un)Equalizer

Sophie Haney
Nov 3 · 4 min read

The Great Equalizer may sound more like an off-brand superhero than an educational mindset, but it is actually the title that many have assigned to the education system. College education, specifically, is supposed to fulfill that promise the most. The title comes from the idea that education is the best way to create equal opportunities across all minority and majority groups. Regardless of one’s financial situation before college, accessing a good education should even the playing field for everyone. While this may sound effective at surface level, there are actually a lot of socioeconomic factors that inhibit people from getting the most out of an education. The “Great Equalizer” is far more idealistic and far less realistic than many people are willing to admit.

One of the main groups that educational equality attempts to help is low-income families. Analysis by the Pew Research Center has shown that 20% of college students come from low income families (for the purpose of this research, this refers to families making less than $35,900 a year). Theoretically, students coming from these families should be able to get jobs that drastically improve their income once they receive a good education. However, many students that come from these families already have to work part-time or even full-time jobs to even attend school, let alone support themselves or the rest of their family. Students who take on this responsibility don’t have as much time to study or do homework, so they end up falling behind in school and they don’t receive the education they need. The idea that their education will make them money in the future fails to take into account the fact that these students, and their families, need money now. They can’t wait four or more years until they are out of college to start making a substantial income. And getting a job directly after college is hardly a guarantee these days. According to the University of Washington’s Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology (DO-IT) Program, 53% of college graduates are unemployed or are working in a job that does not require a bachelor’s degree (most of which do not pay much more than minimum wage). Whether it’s due to an increasingly competitive job market or a fluctuating economy, the fact remains that many people who receive higher education are still at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a job. Many individuals end up dropping out or avoiding school altogether to start making money right away, even if it means settling for a lower paying job.

Most of the people who do manage to get higher paying jobs straight out of college do so because their parents have money or connections. A study recently released by sociology professor Paul Attewell and doctoral candidate Dirk Witteveen showed that students from wealthier families got jobs with higher incomes than students coming from more impoverished families. The study does not suggest that impoverished individuals don’t still benefit from a college education; rather that wealthier individuals have an easier time finding a job after college. They speculate that their parent’s connections have a large impact because successful business owners want to hire people that remind them of themselves. It is widely recognized that people in positions of power tend to hire employees that are like them, be it in respect to race, gender, or socioeconomic status. Wealthy, successful business owners want to hire wealthy, successful people, and the only way to have that wealth straight out of college is to inherit it from one’s family. This immediately puts impoverished individuals or individuals coming from a lower socioeconomic status at a disadvantage. It is hard enough to battle other candidates for a job when one is also battling the whole system.

The economic system is not the only one that works against the idea of a Great Equalizer. Social hierarchies and constructs can have a severe impact on the accessibility of both jobs and the education that precedes them. Systematic racism and sexism can have a large impact on one’s ability to succeed in school. The study done by Attewell and Witteveen showed that the negative impact of weaker financial status affected Black and Latinx graduates more than White graduates, and it affected women more than men. This suggests that people of color and women are at an automatic disadvantage for finding a job when they graduate college, because social systems are set up to benefit white men more than anyone else. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, White people make up 78% of the United States labor force. Since people in positions of power tend to hire people like them, people of color are at a statistical disadvantage because it is so much more likely that a White person is in that hiring position. The numbers are shockingly similar for women as well. According to the Center for American Progress, women hold only 25% of executive- and senior-level positions. Despite earning about 60% of undergraduate and masters degrees (also from the Center for American Progress), they are severely underrepresented in high-level work positions. Again, they are far less likely to be hired because they don’t represent the people already in charge. Education is simply not enough to fix this workforce inequality; the greater social systems have to be changed first. Otherwise, progress will never truly be made.

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