Yours For Life

No one can ever take your education away from you.

Dear M & B,

While growing up, my mom reiterated how important it was for me to get an education; to go to college. To her, having a college education meant freedom and independence. “No one can ever take your education away from you,” she would say.

What she didn’t say, however, but what I saw is this. Not having the education herself, that she was wishing for me, meant the most financial freedom she could afford was her $800 bi-monthly salary. Dreams were shelved. Luxuries off the table. Necessities juggled. A dysfunctional marriage endured longer.

Today higher education in the United States is vastly more accessible. In contrast, education even at the primary level in many other countries, especially lower income to lower-middle income countries, is completely out of reach.

Based on the 2018 data reported by Unesco Institute for Statistics or UIS (2019), 258 million children, adolescents and youth worldwide do not have rights and access to an education. That is to say, one-sixth of the global population of that age group is not in school.

The report goes on to show just how significant the educational access gap is between the world’s poorest and richest countries. “According to UIS data, 19% of primary age children (roughly 6 to 11 years old) are not in school in low-income countries, compared to just 2% in high-income countries. The gaps grow even wider for older children and youth. About 61% of all youth between the ages of 15 and 17 are out of school in low-income countries compared to 8% in high-income countries.

Girls continue to face the greatest barriers. According to UIS data, 9 million girls of primary school age will never spend a day in school compared to about 3 million boys. In sub-Saharan Africa, which has the highest rates and numbers of out-of-school children, 4 million girls will never set foot in a classroom compared to 2 million boys.”

“A child without education is like a bird without wings.” ~ Tibetan Proverb

Additionally, according to the educational data of the United Nations Childrens Fund or UNICEF, “over 600 million children and adolescents worldwide are unable to attain minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics, even though two thirds of them are in school.”

You might correctly deduce that poverty is one of the primary reasons children are deprived of education. Other reasons include climate disasters; war and political conflict; displacement; children too hungry, ill or exhausted from work to adequately be able to take advantage of their lessons; poor educational materials; not having access to the internet, trained teachers, or even a physical structure; and being born a girl, a certain ethnic minority, or with a disability.

Without quality education, a child’s ability to shape a better future for themselves and their societies is significantly threatened. They face barriers to employment, earning potential and they suffer adverse health outcomes.

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress in every society, in every family.” ~ Kofi Annan

Watching the toll financial insecurity had on my parents, especially my mother who carried the primary burden of making sure our bills were paid, has instilled a profound understanding in me about how very fortunate I am to have what I have at any given time. My mom would explain to me that regardless of how hard I thought I had something, in fact, I was incredibly fortunate because someone else, who was given birth to just like me, from a mother who wants the very best for their precious child, does not have their basic needs fulfilled, something as fundamental to life as food and the ability to read.

Having said that, the values instilled in me from my childhood and my mother of not taking my opportunities for granted and seizing them, of course are not universal. Rather, despite how lucky we are in this country for many to have access to an education, a concerning trend is happening at the college level in the United States.

According to Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University and an expert on education, “in the 1960s, the proportion of Americans in college doubled; in the last decade, it declined.” More worrisome however is this insight from Professor Vedder: “We expect less of our college kids, but try to reward them more. Research suggests college kids on average spend one-third less time on studies than in 1960, but earn much higher grades.” This same research conducted by Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks show that American students also enter college less prepared than their counterparts from two generations ago.

So how are students today getting better college grades despite arriving less prepared and study less, too?

Data from a National Bureau of Economic Research study suggests that schools are simply lowering their standards and inflating grades. And if it was not enough that professors are giving higher grades to meet students where they are at instead of requiring students to study to actually master the material being taught, The Free Press just released an investigative piece titled Dishonor Code: What Happens When Cheating Becomes the Norm? In her reporting, journalist Suzy Weiss digs into the college culture of cheating that seems to be more of the norm than the exception on many college campuses these days, including our most elite of higher educational institutions.

Excerpts from Suzy Weiss’ reporting include:

“Cheating is rampant,” a Princeton senior told me.

“Many students want the credential, and they just want the easiest way to get that,” Gabriel Rossman, a sociology professor at UCLA, told me. 

A sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious business school, who declined to give me her name, said: “They’re here for the Wharton brand, a 4.0 GPA, and to party.”

“The students see school as a stepping stone,” Beyda [a student at Columbia University] told me. He meant they went on to graduate school or to jobs at consulting firms like McKinsey or Bain or in finance at Goldman Sachs, and then a spouse, a house, children, private school, vacations in Provence—all the nice things in life. 

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The certificate of “successful completion of the course of study,” also known as the diploma, is the official acknowledgement of graduating from college. It is handed to you after attending hundreds of hours of lectures, labs, study groups, office hours, and exams. However, amongst many, it is now gravely and simplistically being seen as a means to an end. A commodity to “the good life.”

Is the point of going to college to get an education lost? Apparently so, at least by some.

What I know, however, is this:

What we learn, and how it transforms us, is the means to the end.

Higher education is meant to be a rigorous endeavor. We arrive young adults, our brain not even having finished developing, and spend four or so years there, often being out on our own for the first time, no longer living under the same roof and care of our parents or caregivers.

We are now the sole stewards of our schedules, our homework deliverables, our academic performance, our self care, and our professorial and peer relationships. We are predominantly responsible for standing on our own two feet and managing our lives and our responsibilities.

It is an exciting and fun time full of firsts.

And it is demanding.

The academic challenges and deadlines of multiple classes are intense, not to mention if we have a part time job, play sports or join an academic or social club.

Important skills for our life and future career, and the development of us as a person, are born from this conflux of circumstances.

With repeated practice we hone our ability to efficiently manage the limited resource of our time against the need to learn copious complex ideas and prove our mastery of the new information. The development of our critical thinking skills help us to become creative problem solvers and agents of better outcomes on complicated issues.

We learn more about ourselves as we continue to mature including what we value, how we operate under pressure, stress management and emotional regulation tools, and the achievements or repercussions of the choices we make in multiple situations. We learn how to adapt to all sorts of challenging situations, further proving to ourselves that we can do hard things. This leads to us deepening our trust in ourselves and our capabilities and in turn our confidence.

Another way to put it: we build resilience. As Michael Neenan writes in his book Developing Resilience, A Cognitive Behavioral Approach, inner resilience is an important resource that appears to be the secret to success in the outer world and the basis of good mental health.

The opportunity to walk through those hallowed halls, to sit in those lecture rooms of great thought, questioning, discovering; to engage and practice in deep thinking; to witness the mistakes and triumphs of history in search of a better way; to revel in the prose of yore and then brave the frontier of writing the next chapter; to build upon, dig deeper, collaborate, and invest anew are great gifts not to be gamed nor taken for granted.

Ultimately, we are meant to be transformed for the better from the experience. Otherwise, we are not only missing the point but we are losing out on the opportunity to grow, evolve and leave college more prepared and better suited for a life of success and happiness than when we arrived.

“Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“Getting to” go to school, at any age and any level, including college, is an invaluable, incalculable opportunity to seize. My education has helped me to find professional success, not because of the diploma, but rather by the way I have been shaped through the process of facing the challenges inherent in doing the work to achieve the degree. Those who choose to side step the transformation in lieu of a lesser and compromised path are doing an incredible disservice to themselves.

“No one can ever take your education away from you,” I hear my mother say. I have reminded myself of this wisdom when I have been hit with adversity and I needed to be resilient and problem solve. When I have hit a wall, which I have many times, I have been able to find a window. It is a valuable asset, my human capital, that I continuously accrue by being curious and a life long learner.

You are given this great opportunity, my loves, to be able to go to school and to get an education. One day you may go to college, I hope. A prospect that, unfortunately and unfairly, too many children and young adults across the globe and in our own backyard do not have access to. I hope you consider what you have to gain by being fully and honorably engaged in your education and go forth seizing every amazing opportunity you can to be transformed for the better.

Your biggest fan, always and forever,

Maman

P.S. Thank you so much to Shiromani Kantmo for the cover photography.