I believe in the power of education to change people’s lives for the better. But when I read Paying for the Party by Laura T. Hamilton last year, I started to seriously question whether it really is the great equalizer we claim it to be. I’m not by any stretch suggesting people shouldn’t pursue education, but the results of Hamilton’s research suggested that more often than not, higher education simply maintains status more than it improves it. So when news broke this week about the FBI’s investigation into cheating and bribery being used to secure admission to elite institutions for already privileged students, I was in no way shocked. It also made me think once again about how higher education seems to have lost its moral compass in the midst of trying to increase enrollment and ranking status. And it’s not just the elite institutions that are placing the interests of the institution above those of the student. So when my dog woke me up in the wee hours of Wednesday morning and my brain started spinning around on this topic, I wrote the following….
Fairy Tale
I keep trying to remind myself
Of the story she told me
About the first-generation student
Coming to campus with the dreams of his entire family
Propelling him forward
He knew so little about how this all worked
He wanted to major in everything
But with the right people looking out for him
He settled on physics
This young man who grew up in the holler
Who went in the lab and worked as hard
As anyone in his family ever worked
But mined knowledge instead of coal
And Princeton
(Yes, that Princeton)
Took notice of this young man from
Mac-Dowell county in West-by-God
No, not the western part of Virginia
But it’s own state since 1863
And this young man
Was offered a full ride
(A full ride!)
To get a PhD at Princeton
I keep reminding myself
Of the tingle I felt in my neck when she told me
Hoping that memory will convince me
That the system can work
That we’re not selling a bill of goods
When we tell these kids
College is worth the investment
We’re not setting them up
For loans they will struggle to repay
I keep trying to convince myself
We’re doing the right thing when we go to those schools
On the mountains and in the hollers
And tell these students
That education can change their lives
Just like it did for that kid who went to Princeton
I keep trying to convince myself
But my lack of surprise
At the news of conspiracy
To create fake resumes
To doctor test scores
Reminds me that I’ve known for years
That the story she told me is the exception
Not the rule
Because the deck is still stacked
In favor of those who least need access
To the doors unlocked by a diploma that says Princeton
This madness — revealed in March
But ubiquitous year round
That we continue to accept
As long as we get our occasional Cinderella