Let’s Talk Privilege:

Why the 1% is expanding, and how we can stretch it even more

Amidst the “make America great again” and “make the rich pay their fair share” rhetoric of the Presidential campaign season, let’s remember one important factor that historically has made America great and allowed Americans to rise into the highest income brackets: a college education.

In 1950, only one percent of the world’s adult population possessed a college degree. By 2010 that privileged number has risen to nearly seven percent, meaning only 7 out of every 100 adults in the world have completed a tertiary degree. By global standards a tertiary degree refers to any college completion degree, including an associates’ degree (sources: Robert J. Barro and Jong-Wha Lee, http://www.nber.org/papers/w15902.pdf, 32; http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf, 23).

Numerous studies continue to show a direct relationship between postsecondary education and income earning over the course of one’s lifetime. Among OECD countries employers pay almost twice as much for college-educated workers in their prime work years. The highest paid college graduates are found in Australia, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States (source: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf, 182).

In the United States, despite stagnant income growth at the lower and middle levels, persons with a bachelors’ degree will earn almost 70% more over the course of their lifetime than those without college degrees. Even those with some college training earn ten percent more than those with just a high school diploma. Postsecondary education also provides protection from economic downturns. College-educated workers in the United States, for example, have lower unemployment rates than the general U.S. population (source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015,http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm).

Job security has become an important issue in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Both candidates have promised to keep jobs in the United States, even going so far as to say they will return jobs that have disappeared. This rhetoric, of course, detracts from reality. According to the 2015 United Nations’ Human Development Report, the jobs most likely to disappear include data entry keyers, tellers, telemarketers, insurance appraisers, and title searchers. Why? Because entrepreneurs are developing the robotic technology to complete those jobs without human labor (source: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/chapter3.pdf, 99).

Advanced education is increasingly becoming the most important avenue for maintaining employment in our rapidly-developing global economy. In fact, over the past decade more than half of all GDP growth in OECD countries was related to the labor income growth of college-educated workers (source: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf, 182).

Unlike Trump and Clinton, we as a nation need to welcome these changes. Because we have strong institutions of higher learning, U.S. citizens can compete in the changing global marketplace and continue to be marketable for employment. Low wage jobs are leaving the United States. It is true. Yet, how many parents teach their children they should ONLY aspire to the lowest-paying jobs?

It is a rare parent who does not want to see her children pursue their occupational dreams. We watched the Olympic stories of parents who built motocross courses in their backyard, moved across the country, or took multiple jobs to help their children achieve their dreams. We all know the stories of John Edwards, John Kasich and Marco Rubio, who rose out of the working class into the highest political circles. We know that higher education was the path they took toward achieving their goals.

This is why access to postsecondary education is critically important for participants in the U.S. economy whose jobs are rapidly changing or even disappearing. This is why cutting edge technological education, along with high standards of excellence in teaching basic employment skills, such as oral and written communication, problem solving and critical thinking, must be elevated by all political parties.

Over 40,000 students pass through the college where I teach each year. Close to 90% of those students are over the age of twenty-two. The reasons why are found in the arguments above: our students are reentering higher education for more advanced training in trades and certifications in their professions, just as other students are entering college for the first time because they lacked the financial resources to attend college at a younger age.

Sadly, if my college is like other community colleges, fifty percent of our first-time students will drop out after their first year (source: Community College Survey for Student Engagement, 2015).

College dropout statistics are notoriously tough, especially at community colleges. Did students find a well-paying job after only a few courses? Did they transfer to another institution and complete their education? We like to assume positive answers to these questions. Yet the college-completion rate among OECD nations hovers around forty percent of the adult population with the U.S. completion rate roughly the same (source: http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf, 60).

College is a privilege few in the world will ever have. As a nation we have the responsibility to increase access to higher education and maintain high standards at all levels of education. Some of the ways my institution has increased access is through weekend, online and evening classes, shorter quarters instead of semesters, and even 5-week intensive courses that students attend only once a week. To offer classes in this manner to nontraditional students is challenging but necessary to help provide Americans with the best opportunities for gaining and maintaining employment.

At the same time students must realize that higher education is a privilege. It is not to be taken lightly. College is hard work, and students should expect to work hard, especially if they are also holding down jobs and raising families. It took me four years to earn a masters’ degree and eight years to complete my Ph.D. because I was also working fulltime and raising children. It was not easy. But, I had people in my life who supported my dream.

The people you see drinking coffee and studying all morning at Starbucks are a rarity. They are not the norm. Most college students live incredibly hectic lives, lack basic support systems to help them achieve their goals, and are terrified of falling into debt. Is it a surprise that the jobs least likely to disappear include mental health and substance abuse workers, occupational therapists, social workers and dieticians? These are the social and political realities we must address as a nation (source: http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/chapter3.pdf, 99).

Rather than scorn the entrepreneurs who have joined the wealthiest 1%, we must welcome them. Entrepreneurs continually rise and fall, yet the ones who succeed create jobs, improve our national GDP, and help raise standards of living. New industries also generate trade, which can help improve the lives of people around the world.

Improving education includes the realization that removing obsolete technologies will help the economy in the long run but hurt workers in the short run. Educational opportunities must address the real-life concerns, fears and restrictions of American workers.

Improving education requires that we commit to high educational standards both for national security and prosperity, as well as for the opportunities standards of excellence provide to students who dream of becoming our next entrepreneurs. Let’s not forget that Thomas Edison took out over 1,000 patents in his lifetime. In other words, Edison dreamed over 1,000 unique and viable inventions and went through the governmental and technological processes of working out his ideas.

Edison is famous for just one: the incandescent light bulb, now obsolete due to improved technologies introduced by others along our long chain of human ingenuity, disruptions and progress. Let’s work to strengthen the links between educational access, high standards of excellence and individual achievement.