Issue: Higher education fail impoverished people by dooming them to ideas of inability

Brasen Chi

Published in

CE Writ150

5 min readApr 24, 2023

Issue: Higher education fail impoverished people by dooming them to ideas of inability

Need to restate into a question

Argument: Higher education should implement new financial practices to support them throughout the semester

Warrant: This is because, by doing so, it will boost their academic performance and remove ideas of incompetence

Thesis: Although there are advantages some higher income students have to entering university, the most daunting barrier for impoverished students is financial. Unless universities can address and implement financial systems to support students, not just in entering schools but day to day finances as well, they wouldn’t be able to focus entirely on their academics and the cycle of poverty may be perpetuated by ideas of incompetence.

Premises to prove:

The biggest barrier for impoverished students is the financial cost of school, not difficulties in academics or capability
Evidence of financial systems that can work, and must be implemented
Prove that day to day financial aid would assist these students
Prove that attention is being taken away from academics to focus on day to day work
Prove that this leads to ideas of failures in ideas of self-efficacy
This leads to certain substance abuses
Substance abuse leads to perpetuation of poverty

Topic sentences

Many impoverished students cannot go to school, not because of their grades or intelligence, but because of the cost of higher education; it’s not just tuition, but also the costs of daily living.
However, many financial systems, like the one in the University of Louisville implemented, where students received full rides and also money to pay for living expenses, have shown to have successful results.
In reality, students can’t focus on their academics due to their day to day work. (The main reason for the study in the University of Louisville was to upend the assumption that it’s not poverty that restricts these students but the lack of time and energy.)
With an inability of time to focus and study, impoverished students are forced to then drop out and be seen, socially, as failures.
This, not only solidifies the ideas in impoverished students that they are less capable, but also, without looking at the whole picture and factors leading to drop out rates, stereotypes that impoverished students are just less intelligent/dumber
Finally, the perpetuation of social stigma feeds back into the cycle of poverty as higher economic status jobs wouldn’t hire students from impoverished backgrounds.

Body Paragraphs:

Many impoverished students cannot go to school, not because of their grades or intelligence, but because of the cost of higher education; it’s not just tuition, but also the costs of daily living after getting in. Typically, the assumption is that ‘success is effort’; therefore, the lack of success, in all aspects, is due to a lack of effort. However, it’s come to have been shown that instead of this, for impoverished students in the education system, there are other hurdles that may keep them from attending higher education — the greatest financial. Even then, people assume that scholarships and full rides will suffice in setting these students up for a successful life in university. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. Often enough, it isn’t just the costs of entrance that’ll deter students into dropping out or not even attending in the first place. Students would still have to buy textbooks, food, security deposits, transportation, in case they didn’t live on campus, and many other small finances. Regardless of if the necessary purchase was three hundred dollars or five thousand, it still cannot be purchased. For students already working just to scrape by, these numbers will be the bane of their academic existence as they find difficulty in balancing work, school, and other responsibilities and stresses that more privileged students may not have to.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/30/college-poverty-expense-cost-dropout/

However, many financial systems, like the one in the University of Louisville implemented, where students received full rides and also money to pay for living expenses, have shown to have successful results both professionally and academically. As they addressed the costs of school, not just tuition, but the other small expenses too — textbooks, food, security deposits, transportation, etc, they found that academic success followed after: dropout rates decreased, GPA increased, and student engagement increased. Students, instead of working to buy a three hundred dollar textbook or even just to get a twenty five dollar bus commute ticket, were able to commit themselves to school.

In reality, students can’t focus on their academics due to day to day work. As students have to work during the schooling day, stress about, not just school, but being able to pay for necessary living expenses, starts to build up, leading to poorer academic performance. Even with the flexibility that can come with a college schedule, students are forced to make choices in whether to work or study, pushing them further behind their peers. There was a strong correlation between the Gates Millennium Scholars program and, after receiving it, an increase in college engagement. Unsurprisingly as well, as food security fell, GPA fell accordingly. Evidently, concerns about daily living necessities would cause a decrease in academic performance as the attention of students are directed elsewhere.

With an inability of time to focus and study, impoverished students are forced to then drop out and be seen, socially, as failures. With higher education being the norm for getting hired into higher paying jobs, students that cannot get a degree due to an inability of time are neglected. Impoverished students often have to drop out as the amount of time spent to even just survive in the college environment, e.g working for funds to buy textbooks, pay security deposits, and buy just the bare necessities like food, isn’t worth or reflected in their academic performance. Many students report pressure on their mental health due to a lack of support from the university and from the family. Not only that, but it’s typically these kinds of students that report working the most throughout their college career. Students who struggle more financially have worse sleep, increased work hours, and more depressive symptoms. Unfortunately, these students also typically had a higher dropout rate.

https://www-tandfonline-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/doi/full/10.1080/07448481.2019.1705306

This, not only solidifies the ideas in impoverished students that they are less capable, but also, without looking at the whole picture and factors leading to drop out rates, stereotypes that impoverished students are just less intelligent/dumber. Instead of looking at the whole picture, most employers will just look at the lack of a college degree leading back to the bias that “effort leads to success”. When students from low-income backgrounds are unable to complete college due to financial or other obstacles, it can lead to negative stereotypes about their intelligence or capabilities. This can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, where students internalize these beliefs and may give up on pursuing their goals or believing in their own potential. Furthermore, the focus on college degrees as a marker of success can be misleading and incomplete. Factors such as systemic poverty, lack of access to resources, and social inequality can contribute significantly to dropout rates and hinder academic achievement. However, these complex issues are often overlooked or ignored by employers who rely on educational credentials to determine a candidate’s worth. The idea that “effort leads to success” is a common misconception that overlooks the systemic and structural factors that contribute to inequality and poverty. It assumes that all individuals have equal opportunities and access to resources, which is often not the case. Therefore, it is important to recognize and address the underlying social and economic issues that contribute to disparities in education and employment opportunities for impoverished students.

Written by Brasen Chi