Part A
Oren Cass believes education is not suited for everyone and the money that is put into each individual student would be better used in programming things such as a time-split between traditional high school, vocational training, and subsidized work. He feels this way as there are many types of students but only one curriculum that teaches them. With all the money students can access in loans with no guarantees in making it all back, Cass feels that the time-split is a better pathway for post high school education. The audience that Cass is writing to is lawmakers and school boards. You would need a program set into law with the amount of work and money provided to each student, and the school boards across the nation would have to approve it for use. I feel that Cass is also targeting taxpayers as they are affected by younger generations pulling increased loans out for college in terms of debt and taxes. By stating amounts of $100,000 in debt per student and federal funding growing by 133% in the past 30 years, Cass provides evidence as to why changing the way we funnel that money could benefit students and the economy.
One of Cass’s claims aside from the programming idea is that our current curriculum makes no apologies to the students that it doesn’t suit, and they end up with a harder life on the belief that all students can be college graduates. With this claim, Cass shows federal data that only one in five students go from high school, to college, to career. This supports Cass’s claim as the current system is set on college graduates finding jobs, which only 20% of them do. It finalizes the idea that those students that don’t end up a college graduate aren’t so different from their counterparts because they end up falling off the track. The main idea and the smaller claim are important to the article and make good points, but it’s easy to wonder if Cass has bias towards a college education. On the first page of the article, he states that the first student is celebrated and lavished upon by taxpayers. I feel like he’s ignored the fact that most people choose on their free will not to continue their education past high school, and that education is not the only path in life. It makes me doubt the entire reading as I feel this strong emphasis on the ‘benefits’ of attending college shapes the article into being tense and judgmental on the account that if you do go to college, you may not even go through with it.
Even with the small amount of bias, Cass gives an accurate example of what college students have and what the others do not. As he spoke about the federal funding that goes into loans, instructional costs, gyms, counseling services, it makes me upset on how those who aren’t college students may never be able to even afford the care that college students get just with their tuition alone. Oren Cass makes great points all around and believes that the money that is put into higher education should be funneled into programming that leaves Americans with work experiences, credentials, and money in the bank.
Part B
As a student, I understand what Cass is suggesting but I feel that it is unrealistic. To give every student a bank account with $2,500 in it is ridiculous. Assuming they have access to it when they enter high school, that is a lot of money for a 15- or 16-year-old to have. There is no telling what a parent might do with that money if they hold it in the student’s name too. Cass makes college sound like an obligation, but I feel it’s a choice. I chose to go to college because there was no better option for me. I wasn’t interested in trade school, there were no well-paying jobs in my area to support me post high school, so in order to supplement my lifestyle and build something for myself I chose to go to college. While I feel college is a privilege for some, I feel like we should normalize higher education, vocational schools, and opting out of college in general.
Part C
One view that someone had on Oren Cass’s article was that students fail to make it to college in the first place as the ‘tiered public education system’ fails them completely. This person makes a wonderful point in which the equity of public education is not equal. Before and after you read Cass’s article, you should understand the equity of education and how your education depends on how poor or rich your school district is. As stated in the article, rich suburban districts do much better than urban and rural districts. That’s unequal distribution in the area you live in alone. That’s not touched by race or class, just location. While students are affected by these arguments, this problem has affected generations of families where they’ve been stuck in the same place, doing just what their fathers and mothers did with no escape. No chance to move to a better place with a better education, just in their own zip code forever.
People who read Oren Cass’s article should consider these perspectives as there is more to education than the result. Cass primarily talks about money, and where people who do and don’t do higher education end up at. He doesn’t touch on the demographics of higher education, the advantages of being rich or a legacy student, or even the academic preparation that goes into being a college student. There are so many steps that make someone prepared for higher education that could set up someone for success or failure depending on how they’re performed. Curriculum is not the only factor of a student’s preparedness for college, nor is the only important result money.