Full Description
Making Education Work for the Poor identifies wealth inequality as the gravest threat to the endangered American Dream. Though studies have clearly illustrated that education is the primary path to upward mobility, today, educational outcomes are more directly determined by wealth than innate ability and exerted effort. This accounting directly contradicts Americans' understanding of the promise the American Dream is supposed to offer: a level playing field and a path towards a more profitable future. In this book, the authors share their own stories of their journeys through the unequal U.S. education system. One started from relative privilege and had her way to prosperity paved and her individual efforts augmented by institutional and structural support. The other grew up in poverty and had to fight against currents to complete higher education, only to find his ability to profit from that degree compromised by student debt. To directly counter wealth inequality and make education the 'great equalizer' that Americans believe it to be, this book calls for a revolution in financial aid policy, from debt dependence to asset empowerment.
The book examines the evidence base supporting Children's Savings Accounts, including CSAs' demonstrated potential to improve children's outcomes all along the 'opportunity pipeline': early education, school achievement, college access and completion, and post-college financial health. It then outlines a policy that builds on CSAs to incorporate a sizable, progressive wealth transfer. This new policy, Opportunity Investment Accounts, is framed as the cornerstone of the wealth-building agenda the nation needs in order to salvage the American Dream. Written by leading CSA researchers, the book includes overviews of the major children's savings legislation proposed in Congress and the key features of prominent CSA programs in operation around the country today, as well as new qualitative and quantitative CSA research. The book ultimately presents a critical development of the theories that, together, explain how universal, progressive, asset-based education financing could make education work equitably for all American children.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: Going to School in Unequal America
Chapter Two: The Battle to Define Life Chances and the Distributional Consequences of the Current Education and Economic Systems in America
Chapter Three: Effort Appears Inadequate in the Modern World: Our Identities Are Shaped by Our Real Life Chances
Chapter Four: Moving from the Status Quo to a 21st Century Financial Aid System
Chapter Five: Children's Savings Accounts' Influence on the Opportunity Pipeline
Chapter Six: Toward an Equitable Opportunity Pipeline: The Creation of a Uniquely American Proposal for the 21st Century
Chapter Seven: Conclusion: The American Dream Needs a Wealth Agenda
Appendix A: Descriptions of Some Children's Savings Account (CSA) Programs in the Field
References
