The Politics of College

I am grateful and enriched by exposure to our college students. You are lucky and you can be as special as you chose. Lord knows the Republic is desperate for your dedicated talent. Take seriously your opportunity and understand that the public story on college "for everyone" is a classic political rouse. Here's why:

It is widely believed that every American should have the opportunity to go to college and earn a degree.

Simple idea and a great one. But an inherent flaw is that 90 million adult Americans are unable to read at the fifth grade level and are unable to make change for a dollar. The "college is pillar" is a calculated and simplistic appeal to swing voters. It's not a real call to national action. The college pillar skips right over literacy. It is also disingenuous to disregard the connection between household income and college possibilities. The average SAT verbal score for children qualified to take the SAT from homes with annual income of $10,000 or less is 427. Politicians aren't talking to those people. Focusing on students ready for college is most likely to mean students from households with incomes closer to $100,000 and up where the average verbal score is 560.

The need for college education is stressed by every politician and business leader out there. Corporate employers are dying for talent and college educated employees have incomes nearly double those without college. But college graduation rates have remained steady for the last 35 years and among those who go to four-year colleges, 500,000 a year drop out while we graduate about 1.4 million.

The idea that college is the great social equalizer is political theater. Consider that in America's top 146 colleges and universities, "only 3% of the student body is from families in the country's bottom quarter of wage earners." In a stunning 2003 report from the National Assessment of Adult Literacy and the U.S. Department of Education it was learned that only "31% of the (college) graduates scored at the proficient level -- meaning that they could read lengthily, complex texts and draw complicated inferences."

Many corporate employers find a large percentage of those who actually go to college require some kind of remedial reading and writing coursework to gain an entry level job. Nevertheless, the median household income for college grads is $64,406 while it is $35,744 for high school-only grads. The high school diploma earner's household income is 44% less than the college grad household. However, the median household income of the non-high schook grad is $17,261, indicating an even greater earnings gap (52%) between them and the high school grad. Forget trying to force more kids into college. Any study one might cite on the overarching importance of early childhood development proves that this is where the country should focus first because it has the greatest yield. "Full-funding of Head Start" is not enough and swing voters don't want to hear about Head Start, let alone what we really need to do.

MF

Memories from the Mayor's Office

I'll admit to a case of nostalgia after the Institute's recent State of the City Mayor's Forum. Awash in memories, two oddly stand out right now.

As chief of staff for the mayor, I can say that I never enjoyed a political job more. We swung at every pitch. At this point I was seven years removed from being a student at Xavier.

There are many small pleasures serving in office and one of mine was the creation, through the mayor's office, of the Cincinnati Summer Basketball League, which was notable, most of all, for the opportunities it gave to our players. The mayor took the Cincinnati Basketball All Stars on the road to Boston and Washington and three of our kids got college scholarships and one went to the NBA (LaSalle Thompson-University of Texas.) Many of the kids brought their clothes in Kroger grocery bags because they didn't own a suitcase as they had never gone anywhere before. It wasn't like negotiating peace in the Middle East, but our kids got exposure and experience otherwise unavailable. Then again -- there's still no peace in the Middle East, is there?

Cincinnati was the first place I remember where the now classic fight was waged over the use of public funds to build a sports venue for a wealthy sports team owner. This fight is still going on across the country today with owners threatening to move their teams if they don't get new stadiums with highly profitable luxury boxes. Over the years, as a political consultant, several of my mayors faced these threats and my advice persistently was always the same and always ignored: "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." Too much of the public psyche is tied to professional ball clubs, and it's crazy. What happened to capitalism? This is a form of social welfare. We built a campaign against it and, in the end, the arena was built, but with private funds, and it thrives today as a concert and show venue even though the hockey team moved to Buffalo long ago.

MF

Ben's Speech

If you had to choose the single most important political speech in American history, it would be almost impossible. Of course, Lincoln's Gettysburg address, written on scraps of paper during the train ride to give the speech, is a strong contender. There are others.

My personal choice is Ben Franklin's final appeal for passage of the Constitution by the Constitutional Convention. The Convention was divisive and difficult and came near collapse often. Franklin was in his 80s, infirm and gout ridden, exhausted from putting out the fires of dissension and dissatisfaction, and he could barely speak. Delegates had to strain to hear in that hot and contentious place. The importance of this speech is this: If it hadn't worked, there may not be an America. Here's what they heard:

...for having lived long, I have experience many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once throught right, but found to be otherwise ... Most men, as indeed most sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them is so far error ... I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such ... I doubt too whether any other convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution, for when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does and I think it will astonish our enemies who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded, like those of the builders of Babel and that our states are on the point of separation only to meet thereafter for the purpose of cutting another's throats.

Thus I consent, sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better ... the opinions I have to its errors, I sacrifice to the public good ..."

MF