Email Editor Glen McGhee at gmcghee@aya.yale.edu. Trending hashtags: #collegemeltdown #kleptocene #madness #nonviolence #strikedebt
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Saturday, September 21, 2024
How College Broke the Labor Market (PolyMatter)
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
The American K-12 Pipeline: Inequality and Injustice Start Here
The American education system promises equal opportunity for all. However, that promise is far from reality. The K-12 system, the foundation of this educational pyramid, is riddled with inequalities that create a segregated pipeline towards higher education and future careers. This report delves into the systemic issues within K-12 education and their far-reaching consequences.
Under a Trump-Vance Administration,
we should expect these inequalities to widen, with more resources going
to those who need it least--and fewer resources going to families and
communities that need it most. Furthermore, we should expect even less
oversight of federal dollars for programs meant for working class communities that may or may not work,
including charter schools, online education for kids, and exclusively online teacher education. This could further harden the US class system, making social mobility even more caste-like.
Inequality in the K-12 System
Funding disparities plague the K-12 system. Wealthy school districts often boast smaller class sizes, newer facilities, and access to advanced coursework, while schools in low-income areas struggle with overcrowding, outdated resources, and a lack of qualified teachers. This uneven distribution of resources creates a significant achievement gap, leaving students from disadvantaged backgrounds unprepared for higher education.
Impact on Higher Education
The consequences of K-12 inequality ripple through the entire educational spectrum. Students from under-resourced schools are less likely to meet the admissions requirements for competitive colleges and universities. This disproportionately affects students from low-income families, limiting their access to prestigious institutions and the professional networks they cultivate.
Community Colleges: Community colleges often serve as a steppingstone for students seeking to transfer to four-year institutions. However, the poor preparedness of students from unequal K-12 systems lead to lower completion rates at community colleges.
Regional State Universities: Regional state universities, known for their affordability, become less accessible to students who require extensive remedial coursework due to inadequate K-12 preparation.
Flagship Universities: Flagship universities, the crown jewels of state university systems, become even more exclusive for students from working class backgrounds. The mission of these schools to educate folks from the state is no longer its exclusive or even primary goal. International students who pay greater tuition, or serve as skilled academic labor, are favored.
Elite Universities: Elite universities, with their highly selective admissions processes, remain largely out of reach for those without the academic foundation provided by well-funded K-12 schools.
Regional, State, County, and Local Disparities
The quality of K-12 education can vary dramatically within a single state, county, or even city. Wealthy suburbs often have superior schools compared to their urban counterparts. Rural areas may face challenges in attracting and retaining qualified teachers. These regional and local discrepancies exacerbate existing inequalities.
Demographic Changes
The United States is experiencing significant demographic shifts. The K-12 system needs to adapt to cater to an increasingly diverse student population with varying needs. This includes:
Immigrant Populations: A growing number of students come from families where English may not be the primary language at home. Schools need resources to support these students and ensure their success.
Social Class: Students from low-income backgrounds often have limited access to educational opportunities outside of school, further widening the achievement gap.
Race and Ethnicity: Students of color are disproportionately enrolled in under-resourced schools, creating a system that perpetuates racial and ethnic disparities in educational attainment.
Impact on Employment Opportunities
The unequal K-12 pipeline has a direct impact on opportunities for gainful employment. Students who lack a strong educational foundation are more likely to enter low-paying jobs with limited upward mobility. This cycle of educational disadvantage translates into economic disadvantage, limiting opportunities for social mobility.
The Perpetuation of Poverty and Other Issues
Unequal access to quality education is intricately linked to a web of social issues. Poverty, near poverty, and mass incarceration are more prevalent among those with lower levels of education. Limited opportunities can lead to deaths of desperation, a term encompassing suicides and deaths due to preventable health conditions brought on by chronic stress. Conversely, those who navigate the unequal K-12 pipeline successfully are more likely to accumulate wealth, further widening the gap between the rich and the poor.
Related links:
The K-12 Pipeline for Global Elites: Inequality and Injustice Start Here
A People's History of Higher Education in the US?
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
The K-12 Pipeline for Global Elites: Inequality and Injustice Start Here
The K-12 pipeline for global elites operates as a separate and often invisible track compared to the public system. Instead of merit and potential, this pipeline is characterized by privilege, resources, and a focus on gaining admission to prestigious universities. Here's a breakdown of its key features:
Early Investment:
Elite Private Schools: Wealthy families from around the world enroll their children in elite boarding schools. These schools are known for smaller class sizes, rigorous academics, and experienced teachers.
Students include the children of elites from China (including Hong Kong), Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Brazil, and Venezuela. Room and board can exceed $60,000 a year.
Elite schools do offer scholarships to lesser folks, not out of charity, but because they provide value to the institutions. But these scholarships do not outweigh the immense privileges that the children of elites receive before, during, and after school.
Enrichment Activities: Extracurricular activities like sports, music, theater, and coding classes are actively encouraged. These activities not only enhance well-rounded development but also provide opportunities for leadership and awards, which can bolster college applications.
Test Prep and College Counseling: Students receive extensive coaching for standardized tests like the SAT and ACT, maximizing their chances of achieving high scores. Professional college counselors guide them through the complex application process, including essay writing, recommendation letters, and strategic college selection.
Parental Involvement:
High Expectations: Parents of elite students often set high academic expectations and provide a supportive environment conducive to learning. This includes access to educational resources, technology, and quiet study spaces. Working class parents may hold their children to high standards, but they may not have the time or resources.
Networking and Alumni Connections: Elite parents may leverage their own professional networks and alumni connections to secure internships, research opportunities, or even preferential consideration from colleges and universities. While working class folks have networks, such as religious organizations and labor unions, they cannot offer connections that elites have.
The Outcomes:
Standardized Test Scores: Students on the elite track consistently achieve higher scores on standardized tests, increasing their competitiveness for admission to selective universities.
College Admissions: These students are well-positioned for admission to prestigious universities, often securing spots at Ivy League institutions or other highly ranked schools. This opens doors to exclusive networks, prestigious internships, and faculty mentorship that can further propel their careers.
Monday, June 24, 2024
The Future of Publicly-Funded University Hospitals (Dahn Shaulis and Glen McGhee)
There are more than 200 active university medical centers (UMCs) and 1,700 teaching hospitals in the United States. These institutions, tied to America's major universities, employ large numbers of medical professionals, administrators, and laborers. While UMCs have grown in size, dominating areas in major cities, locating facilities that are financially well, well-staffed, and adequately resourced has become more difficult.
Also known as academic medical centers or AMCs, UMCs feel the financial strain of a number of social issues: a growing elderly population, drug overdoses, mental health problems, gunshot wounds, victims of car crashes, children with severe illnesses, and numerous medical problems related to poverty. Some UMCs are trying to grow out of their financial problems by expanding their networks and buying up other facilities that may provide more profitability.
Private equity is also taking over hundreds of hospitals and clinics across the US, finding value where they can, however they can. Private for-profit hospitals, for example, will steer their most vulnerable patients to UMCs. And they will cut out programs they cannot profit from. Publicly funded university hospitals often cannot turn people away or dump patients if they cannot pay their medical bills--or if they are not covered by premium insurance.
While the covid epidemic was horrifying for hospitals, the underlying conditions for many UMC's are a slow-motion disaster. University medical centers are facing financial challenges due to several key factors:
1. Rising costs outpacing revenue growth: Operating expenses, particularly for staff, facilities, and technology investments, are increasing faster than patient care revenue.
2. Reduced government funding: State support for academic health centers has been shrinking since the early 1990s. Federal and state funding for medical research and education has also stagnated or declined.
3. Lower reimbursement rates: UMCs are facing low reimbursement rates from Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurance. Cost-control measures introduced by the Affordable Care Act have also impacted revenues.
4. Legacy pension costs: Some UMCs are burdened with high fringe benefit costs inherited from state systems.
5. Increased competition: Many UMCs are too small to compete effectively in the current healthcare market against monopolies like HCA and Keiser. Their lack of scale gives them little leverage in negotiations for services and supplies.
6. Balancing multiple missions: UMCs must juggle patient care, research, and education. This can lead to inefficiencies, as physician time spent on research and teaching is less profitable than pure clinical care.
7. Infrastructure investments: UMCs need to make large investments in infrastructure and technology to maintain top-tier diagnostic and research capabilities
The main problem seems to be that the traditional financial model for academic medical centers is no longer sustainable in the current healthcare environment. Their operating costs are rising faster than their revenue sources can keep up, and they are struggling to maintain financial viability while fulfilling their multiple missions of patient care, research, and education.
Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs): While essential, NICU care for premature or critically ill newborns is expensive due to the high level of support needed.
Trauma Centers: Trauma care often involves a high volume of resources and unpredictable patient conditions, making it difficult to predict or control costs.
Mental Health Services: Mental healthcare reimbursement rates tend to be lower compared to other specialties, making these programs less profitable.
This strain at UMCs is under-girded by a dysfunctional and expensive healthcare system serving a population that is violent and unequal, and increasingly sedentary, unhealthy, disabled, elderly, and under psychological strain.
Financial problems and/understaffing and safety issues have been noted at:
University of Vermont Health Network (VM)
Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (NJ)
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (PA)
West Virginia University Medicine (WV)
University of Miami Health System (FL)
Detroit Medical Center-Wayne State University (MI)
Marquette University Health Care (WI)
Cook County Health-Rush University (IL)
University of Chicago Medical Center (IL)
Oregon Health & Science University (OR)
UCLA Health (CA)
We expect to see more headlines about the declining finances at some university hospitals--and the downsizing that will follow. Fierce Healthcare has created a layoff tracker to monitor these events.
Related links:
Baby Boomers Turning 80: The Flip Side of the 2026 Enrollment Cliff