Post-secondary Education

Husband and wife Robert and Laura Rios grew up in Lorain, Ohio and attended high school in the 1970s. Rather than go to college, they took manufacturing jobs straight out of high school. As Laura describes it, "We had this vision that Robert would get this fantastic job at the steel plant because that's where his father and grandfather worked, or he would get a job at the Ford plant like his uncle and his uncle before him. We were of a generation that didn't need a skilled job to make a good living. All we needed was a high school diploma. We knew people who had dropped out of high school and walked into these living-wage jobs." ¹

A generation ago, a high school degree by itself might have been enough for two working adults to provide a family with a middle-class standard of living. Increasingly, high school graduation has become a precarious place to stop one's education. This was the reality faced by the Rios when they were both laid off in the early 1990s.

For more than a year, the Rios and their children lived in poverty. The couple decided that the only way to improve their long-term financial security was to go back to school. This was easier said than done because they had three children to feed and a mortgage and other bills to pay. But it was the only way they could see to get the skills needed to compete for good jobs.

Their additional education has paid off. Laura now has an associate's degree and a job as a community organizer. Robert received vocational training that helped him land a well-paid job with a local hardware supply company. Robert and Laura's experience is not uncommon. Research shows that earning an associate's degree or higher—or even some postsecondary education—often becomes a "trigger event" for exiting poverty. ²

The importance of education as a pathway out of poverty cannot be overstated. People who graduate from high school earn more money over the course of their lives than people without a high school diploma. Likewise, people with college degrees earn more than high school graduates. Even some college coursework means higher earnings than none at all.

In 2003, the College Board reported the average cost of college at a four-year public university was more than 70 percent of a low-income family's total income. ³ As it is now, higher education—the great equalizer in many people's minds—is all but out of reach for the 39 percent of U.S. children growing up in low-income families, ⁴ except for those bright and lucky enough to earn a scholarship or willing to take on tens of thousands of dollars in loans. Pell Grants once made college more available to low-income students, but today the average grant covers only about half the tuition costs of a community college. ⁵

A four-year college degree may not be right for everyone, but this does not mean education must or should stop with high school. Whether through vocational and technical schools, community colleges, or on-the-job training, people need access to education beyond high school to succeed in the work world.

Endnotes

1. Story appears in Bread for the World Institute's 2008 Hunger Report: Working Harder for Working Families.
2. Signe-Mary McKernan & Caroline Ratcliff  (2002), Transition Events in the Dynamics of Poverty, US Department of Health and Human Services.
3. Trends in College Pricing (2003) , College Board.
4. Ayana Douglas-Hall and Michelle Chau (2007), Basic Facts About Children: Birth to Age 18, National Center for Children in Poverty.
5. Tom Waldron, Brandon Roberts and Andrew Reamer (2004), Working Hard, Falling Short, Annie E. Casey Foundation.