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The Conspiracy Letters
Join the fray! Email us at letters@poorandstupid.com. We reserve the right to publish all letters with authors' names, unless specified as not for publication or for publication anonymously. Letters may be edited for clarity and brevity.
Friday, July 28, 2006
DESIRE AND PERSISTENCE I have some expertise in this area, I think ["Have You Considered Redistributing Your Desire?" 7/25/2006]. I teach in a Masters of Public Administration Program. We have some 125 students in the program, of whom about 100 are taking classes during any given semester. Probably 60% are "in service" (i.e. already working in a public admin or civil service position or for a non-profit), 30% are working full-time outside of govt or NPOs and 10% are full-time students.I have had students who I later found had worse personal situations than the one described. It didn't always stop them. Mostly it appears to me to be a question of desire and persistence. The op ed writer doesn't obviously display much of either.
Sure, it's tough, but my good students work really hard, produce great work, and finish the course. Full-time students frequently finish in 2 years while the others take up to 4.
It is a balancing act, but it is being done routinely by my students.
OTOH, I do have a (thankfully small) number of student whiners. It's not just free grad school they seek, it's free everything, including grades and a degree. My guess is the op ed person would fit in the latter. It would be interesting to talk confidentially to her profs and find out.
James Ivers
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 4:10 PM | link
WHO'S "UPPER CLASS" NOW? I sometimes wonder how opinion pieces like these ["Have You Considered Redistributing Your Desire?" 7/25/2006] can actually be printed in major newspapers. The author is complaining about graduate school only being available for the "upper class" in society and how she is not part of that "upper class". What amazes me is how her own situation contradicts her point? "Is access to graduate education in America exclusively for the upper class? As a first-year graduate student struggling to make ends meet, I believe the answer is yes." - If graduate education in America (I guess, as opposed to every where else in the world) is exclusively for the upper class, then how is the author a graduate student? Is she a part of the "upper class" or has she lied to infiltrate this elite society of wealth in order to get an education? All she says throughout the article is that she is struggling...so, she is complaining that paying for graduate school is not easy. She states "It's clear that a federal need-based grant program for graduate students must be created. This would help level the playing field by creating access to graduate programs for students -- access based on merit and ambition rather than economic resources." This translates into "I am attending and paying for graduate school but finding it difficult. Would the government please force someone to pay for my education since I do not want to go through these hard times?" It is not a "need-based" program she wants, but a "wants-based" program.
And, as a man who grew up in a small town in Oklahoma (~800 people), who lived in a trailer all his childhood, whose father passed away when he was 17, and whose mother works as a janitor, I graduated with a Master's degree from Princeton University without any government aid - yes, an Ivy League school. I guess the author will have to categorize me and my family as "upper class" now.
Shawn Smith
Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:23 AM | link