News We Already Know: College Degrees Fail to Lift Low Income Youth Out of Poverty

You can also add JD, MA, MS, PhD, and LLM along to the long list of degrees that will not lift you out of poverty. So much for the brainwashing from teachers and family my entire life that I could achieve anything with a college education. A study from the Institute of Higher Education Policy shows that an increasing number of low-income youth are pursuing higher education, but remain poor (Hi CLEO Pre-Law Institute for minorities *waves*).

Increasing proportions of low-income young adults are pursuing higher education, but some remain poor even with a postsecondary degree, according to a new report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

In 2008, among Americans ages 18 to 26 whose total household income was near or below the federal poverty level, 47 percent were or had been enrolled in college, compared with 42 percent in 2000. Eleven percent of them had earned a degree, a proportion roughly equivalent to that eight years ago, according to the report, which is based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

The institute is a nonprofit group in Washington that conducts public-policy research to encourage access and success in higher education.

In introducing its report, the group called into question President Obama's declaration in his State of the Union address in January that "the best anti-poverty program around is a world-class education." Poor students go to college academically unprepared, the report says, and, amid competing family and work obligations, they accumulate debt "that could have been avoided by pursuing a different type of degree or a credential."

None of the 11 percent of low-income graduates should remain in poverty, said Gregory S. Kienzl, director of research and evaluation at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. "If you have a degree, you should no longer be poor," he said.

Across all racial and ethnic groups, greater proportions of low-income young adults were or had been enrolled in college in 2008, compared with 2000. Hispanic students showed the largest percentage-point increase, to 37 percent from 29 percent. Low-income Asian and Pacific Islander and white students enrolled at the highest rates in 2008, 62 percent and 51 percent, respectively; the greatest proportions of low-income degree holders were also from those groups.

The report, "A Portrait of Low-Income Young Adults in Education," is the first in a series financed in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The next report will focus on attendance and enrollment patterns among low-income students, Mr. Kienzl said, including that black and Hispanic women more often attend for-profit institutions than public four-year colleges.

The article also leaves out the little inconvenience of having thousands in student loans to pay back, especially for children from poor and low-income families who have no way of helping them pay off those loans. As someone from a working class neighborhood, I can say from firsthand experience how heartbreaking it is for families who invest the time and money to make sure their children are the first in the family to attend college, only to see their children come home with no job and thousands in debt. The higher education system has become a Ponzi Scheme and the people who are responsible for perpetuating the higher education scam and charging hundreds of thousands for useless degrees should be forced to testify before Congress for their crimes.

College and graduate school have only become more accessible because of worthless for-profit scams and lower tier schools. This is far from the world class education for the poor President Obama talks about in his speeches, and he knows that too. It sure sounds nice to say in theory that the United States gives everyone the opportunity to pull themselves up by their bootstraps with a college education. It kind of takes off any blame on the elites for draining the public coffers of billions and instead places it squarely on us powerless unemployed and underemployed citizens for whining too much about our plight. No one talks about the business of selling worthless degrees and a really poor education system at its core. Our public schools are falling apart and some of the teaching at colleges and graduate schools are really bad because the professors are paid not to teach but to publish academic papers. Not only do you waste money on the worthless degree, but you really don't get a good education either. Has anyone graduated from law school prepared to practice law? There's also that little problem of not having enough jobs being created to put 24 million Americans to work.

We at BIDER and other scam bloggers have said this again and again. College and graduate school have ALWAYS benefited the rich who had the money and connections to get the best private school education and admittance into the Ivy League. If they were dumb rich kids, they still had a job guaranteed with the family business or through a business associate. At every level of education since high school, most of the people I know who turn out to be "successful" or at least employed at a well-paying or prestigious job have done so because of their family wealth and connections. The truth is that the degree alone has never helped the majority of people who didn't graduate from top schools at the top of their class. Even a degree from a high ranked school gets you nowhere without connections, unless you are extremely resourceful and lucky.

Grade Inflation Won't Help Students Find Jobs

The new trend of grade inflation is just another desperate move by law school scam artists to appease a growing number of law students who are visiting our blogs and demanding change in what will likely be a very long jobless era. Inflating grades is another way of pulling the wool over students' eyes because it allows law schools to ignore bigger problems like tuition inflation, its existence as a third tier law school in an oversaturated legal market, and law school teaching methods by academics rather than trained and experienced lawyers. It also pits third tier law students against each other in an imaginary battle for jobs that do not exist for them or the other 99 percent of today's law school graduates. Making a B-minus into a B doesn't change any third tier law students' dire situation in this economy.

Chapman is the latest law school where students have become so frantic about their job prospects that they are petitioning to increase the mandatory median gpa from 2.8 to 3.0. Orange County Register columnist and law student Frank Mickadeit tells us more:

Loyola Law School in L.A. recently announced it was automatically bumping up student GPAs roughly 0.3 (on a 4.0 scale) across the board, immediately drawing criticism, from academic circles. Loyola's reason: the previous mandatory median of a B- (or what would be about 2.8) was excluding students from jobs where a 3.0, or a B, was required.

Loyola law grads also were less competitive with grads from USC and UCLA, which seem to be racing each other to the heights of absurdity. There, as at UCI, the median GPA is already 3.3 on a 4.3 scale. Did I mention that Loyola's bump would be retroactive to as far back as 2007?

Not to be left behind, students at my law school, Chapman, have petitioned to increase the mandatory median from 2.8 to 3.0, essentially keeping pace with Loyola, but moving ahead of Whittier Law, which maxes out the median grade at 2.875.

I signed the petition because I didn't want to be the only weasel in my class not to – which I was assured I would be – but I don't feel good about adding to the nonsense. The national average GPA has increased from 2.93 to 3.11 since 1992. The "Gentleman's C" has become the "Delinquent's D."

It's hard to know what any employer can really make of a GPA. This rather forces them to rely on the tried-but-not-always-so-true method of evaluating a graduate based on his or her school's reputation, as evidenced by the quality (or lack thereof) of recent graduates. In other words, the prospective lawyer is being evaluated on others' performance.


Some elite schools, such as Harvard and Yale, have done away with grades. Last year I made my own deal with a grading structure that seems impossibly flawed: I simply don't look at my grades. And if, in the back of my mind, I know it's possible that I'm just one-tenth of a point above the academic probation line, well, that makes me study harder.

Elite schools like Harvard and Yale have never needed a grading system. When you're someone like George W. Bush, is your future really dependent on whether or not you fail a class at Yale? Of course not. Many students at top tier schools and even not so top tier schools have the connections to obtain prestigious positions independent of their grades. I know of someone who attended an Ivy League college and a Tier 1 (not T14) law school. This person, through personal East Coast connections that were developed long before law school, was able to obtain a mid-sized law firm job during the recession without even having to show any grades from law school. This person had never worked for a law firm prior to receiving this offer. That is how things have always worked within elite circles. It's just that the inequality is more glaringly obvious now that everyone else has to fight tooth and nail for even an interview. A slight bump will not help law students nearly as much as someone who received a C in Contracts but didn't have to show their grades because they are the son or daughter of an influential person. Not even law school rank, as I and many other T14 grads who have shown up here to attest, will guarantee you a job if your family does not belong to the town's elite.

I can understand why students would believe that grade inflation will give them an edge. A decade ago maybe it would work in helping lower tier graduates or students from poor and middle class families find good jobs. Those days no longer exist. If anything this recession and the bailouts to the rich should make it crystal clear to the majority of us that the gap between rich and poor in this country will only grow wider. A degree and a glowing transcript from a third tier school won't change that.

Read. Now.

If you enjoyed our discussion on education and the elite, this is a must read. Here are a few excerpts from The Disadvantages of an Elite Education but I strongly recommend visiting The American Scholar to read the article in its entirety.

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

....

The first disadvantage of an elite education, as I learned in my kitchen that day, is that it makes you incapable of talking to people who aren’t like you. Elite schools pride themselves on their diversity, but that diversity is almost entirely a matter of ethnicity and race. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. Visit any elite campus in our great nation and you can thrill to the heartwarming spectacle of the children of white businesspeople and professionals studying and playing alongside the children of black, Asian, and Latino businesspeople and professionals. At the same time, because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.

But it isn’t just a matter of class. My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class. I was given the unmistakable message that such people were beneath me. We were “the best and the brightest,” as these places love to say, and everyone else was, well, something else: less good, less bright. I learned to give that little nod of understanding, that slightly sympathetic “Oh,” when people told me they went to a less prestigious college. (If I’d gone to Harvard, I would have learned to say “in Boston” when I was asked where I went to school—the Cambridge version of noblesse oblige.) I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.

....

In short, the way students are treated in college trains them for the social position they will occupy once they get out. At schools like Cleveland State, they’re being trained for positions somewhere in the middle of the class system, in the depths of one bureaucracy or another. They’re being conditioned for lives with few second chances, no extensions, little support, narrow opportunity—lives of subordination, supervision, and control, lives of deadlines, not guidelines. At places like Yale, of course, it’s the reverse. The elite like to think of themselves as belonging to a meritocracy, but that’s true only up to a point. Getting through the gate is very difficult, but once you’re in, there’s almost nothing you can do to get kicked out. Not the most abject academic failure, not the most heinous act of plagiarism, not even threatening a fellow student with bodily harm—I’ve heard of all three—will get you expelled. The feeling is that, by gosh, it just wouldn’t be fair—in other words, the self-protectiveness of the old-boy network, even if it now includes girls. Elite schools nurture excellence, but they also nurture what a former Yale graduate student I know calls “entitled mediocrity.” A is the mark of excellence; A- is the mark of entitled mediocrity. It’s another one of those metaphors, not so much a grade as a promise. It means, don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. You may not be all that good, but you’re good enough.

A Lesson in Education

An unemployed law school friend (who, btw, graduated from my T14
cum laude) forwarded me this Above The Law story about a T14 graduate who got a high-profile and well-paid government job through -how else? - connections:

Fenster, a 29-year-old lawyer who previously worked for a short time at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, was recently selected by Governor David Paterson to serve as executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State.

The article notes that Fenster got the job despite having "no experience in workers' comp or labor law". So how did he get this coveted position after being laid off from his biglaw job last year? Via Inside Workers Comp NY:

I have received a number of communications indicating that Fenster got his resume submitted for this position with the help of an old college buddy from the University of Michigan, Debra Feinberg, and their mutual friend, Stephen Levin. Levin, who ran successfully for City Council from Brooklyn this past November was former Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who happens to be the chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party. Feinberg, who was a legislative aide to Assemblyman Lopez, was the campaign manager for Levin.

Lopez’s need to place somebody in a job came up at the same time there was a vacancy at the Workers Comp Board for a “short-timer” as everybody understands that come the first month or two of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration, this job will be filled with someone with real experience.

This is consistent with what we’ve heard here at ATL, in comments and by private emails. We’ve also heard that Debra Feinberg may be more than just Fenster’s “buddy.” From an ATL tipster:

[Fenster’s] girlfriend, Debby Feinberg, works as a Democratic operative in Brooklyn. People don’t just get that type of position by submitting their resume [as Fenster seemed to suggest to the NYT]. Jeff is a good guy and was a reasonably decent student at Michigan, but it was a classic case of “it’s not what you know but who you know.”

I'm not posting this story to bash Mr. Fenster and the method in which he secured an amazing job. Kudos to him. This is simply a reminder to readers that oftentimes doing everything right isn't enough to get the job. Nepotism is a tale as old as time. It happens during good economic times as well as bad and it is still the single most important factor in getting a job. It is how the world's elite and their friends and family keep their hands on the reigns of wealth and power.

I wrote in my inaugural post yesterday about the education myth - that it does not guarantee more wealth and success. Graduates of Tier 2 and 3 law schools know this all too well. I'd like to make an addendum to that statement. Education helps the children of those already in power have a better chance at more wealth and success. The fact that the majority of the students you find at T14 law schools come from upper middle class and wealthy backgrounds is not a mistake. Angel and I come from working class backgrounds. We are an anomaly in the halls of T14 schools and biglaw. This, wherein lies the problem for many of our readers.

Higher education - from rankings to admissions - is a system that for the most part benefits the ruling class. If you're poor or middle class it is often a lose-lose situation. Poor children usually don't receive a quality high school education and don't have the money for test prep courses to make them competitive candidates for the best colleges let alone the best law schools. The brightest of the poor students often turn down opportunities to attend better schools because they can't afford the high tuition. They certainly don't have the connections to get the best jobs after graduation - or any job during a recession. Poor students will nearly always take the greatest risk in investing in a costly yet lower-ranked education. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. Which is why more people are beginning to understand that apprenticeships in a trade such as plumbing might be a better route for working class children. Construction and plumbing pays well and it is a more realistic expectation than, say, becoming the executive director of the Workers’ Compensation Board of New York State. We now know those jobs are off limits to applicants without the right connections.

More from the Above the Law article:

Almost all of the folks we’ve met who have been lucky enough to land legal jobs during the Great Recession did so through networking or connections. This is true not just for people who have found jobs at, say, small law firms, but even some lawyers we now who found jobs with the federal government. It’s helpful to have a friend “on the inside” at a government agency, who can let you know immediately when a position opens up — sometimes even before it’s publicly posted — and who can bring your application to the attention of the hiring authority.

Some of you might not like the role that connections play in the job hunt, since it’s not exactly a pure meritocracy. But it’s the way the world works. So get used to it — and order up some business cards for yourself (even if you’re currently “in transition” / unemployed, or just a law student; you can put your personal contact info on your cards).

True. It is certainly how the world works. But how does a law school grad from Podunk, USA "network"? It isn't so easy for a person who went to school on merit but does not possess the family connections, a boyfriend, or a girlfriend in a position of influence and power to simply network to get a job. Angel and I could go to a hundred networking events and short of marrying a partner or politician, I doubt either of us would come away with a job offer. The job almost always still goes to a friend, a friend of a friend, a daughter, a son, a neighbor's child, a member of their church, temple, alma mater, or boarding school. In short, the job goes to someone who belongs in their social class, their community, their neighborhood, their world. The terms networking and connections are used by people who already have an "in" with a personal link. This recession has taught the poor a lesson in education: it is directly tied to wealth and privilege and no amount of it will put you on the same playing field as someone with a connection.