Like Dumber, Like Dumb

I've worked since I was in 7th grade. I worked in high school, never had any money, certainly none w/ which to be frivolous; worked all through college, worked every summer for a wage, no money to take that swank internship that paid nothing and required $1,000+/month in rent in an actual city. I've worked since graduating college for everything I have, and I'm grateful for it. I worked in grad school. I kept a rich family's developmentally delayed daughter company in the afternoons and cooked their evening meal. It was a singularly odd experience, though only because rich people live very differently in their large, quiet houses. I've cleaned toilets, I've fetched and ferried, I've taken my share of orders and worked my share of holidays. I have school loans which impact (hamper, mostly) every decision I make. My education gave me some opportunities, yes, but they did not land me in the White House at age 22, sans degree, working for the Preznit of the Divided States, then ferry me to Harvard Business School on a cloud of privilege. Wow.

Bush Aide Gets Exception at Harvard.

The Harvard Crimson: "A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS)."

"Though it is rare for HBS -- or any other professional or graduate school -- to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate degree, admissions officers made an exception for Blake Gottesman, who for four years has served as special assistant and personal aide to Bush."

Reading this, all I can think of is the kid I had to tutor in my 6th grade class, the kid whose shoes did not fit, the scrawny little guy shorter than me whose clothes quite obviously belonged to a man, the kid for whom long division was never.going.to.happen., at least not on paper, and I think of my friend in 12th grade, so smart, wanted to study English Lit, couldn't afford college even though our tuition at the time was about $300 (let's hear it for state schools!), who went to the local technical college and became an electrician. I think of him as The Chaucer-Loving Electrician. I think of countless kids without a whole hell of a lot whose moms and dads couldn't get them a free ride to Harvard. F*cking hell.

Comments

[KC]

I hear you.

[David]

Reagan's cutting off of student loans had a devastating impact on my life and education.

We must fight the good fight.

[Melinda (Sour Duck)]

"to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate degree"

!? WTF is going on over at Harvard.

[handdrummer]

Pennsylvania is next to last nationally (after Mississippi) in per capita support of its state schools. In the 5 years I've been working on my Master's, tuition at Penn State has gone up nearly 60%. In-state students now pay $12,000 in tuition per year alone, highest in the nation for land grant institutions. It's probably going up another 8% in July. The administration tells us we should be thankful it wasn't another double digit percentile increase.

If my department wasn't literally the best in the world in its field, I'd give up and move to Ohio or Michigan (or North Carolina) where in-state working poor students still can afford their flagship state university.

I'm really struggling financially to finish my degree. And I can't see the sense of piling up a huge school loan debt at the (soon to be) age 56. So I take a few credits one semester, work for two semesters, and hope that someday there will be scholarship help for returning adult students.

Of course I guess I should be thankful they even let me in at all. PSU is an alumni driven operation now, so most of the students are the children of alumni, not the rising working class first in the family to college kids that they were in my undergraduate days. The sense of entitlement purely drips off of them like ichor. Careful, don't get slimed.

[DivaJood]

My son teaches at university level; it took him several years to find a permanent position because there was no funding for teachers. While he is doing what he loves, and has wanted to do since he was a child, he is aware that he's one of the lucky ones. Without "certain advantages" most young people don't make it to college; if they get through with advanced degrees, they have to compete against the Blake Gottesmans of the world. Just because he carried Shrub's breath mints. WTF.