If my parents were alive today, Mom would be 101 years old. Dad would be 107.
Mom earned a high school diploma from Leyden High School, but Dad left school at 14 to get a job to help support his family during the Great Depression. Had it not been for such hard economic times, he would have earned his high school diploma, too.
That’s because our government a century ago felt that education was important enough to guarantee that young people have the right to be educated through high school, funded by taxpayers.
After serving in the army before and during World War II, Dad got the job that would last him the rest of his working life — in a steel mill. Mom stayed at home to raise the kids, and when we were grown, she held a few part-time jobs.
Their story was pretty typical for the time. My aunts mostly stayed at home to raise the kids, and my uncles worked mostly in manual labor jobs — carpentry, cement work, and the like. Some had low-level business jobs.
And most of them earned a high school diploma, the no-extra-cost government-guaranteed gold standard at the time.
But a lot has changed in the century since they were public-school students. Jobs today for the most part are far more complex, requiring far more education to get the job done.
Consider teaching, for example. In 1930, most states required no more than a high school education to teach school. When Mom left high school with her diploma in hand, she was likely the educational equal of some of her teachers.
But today? Today’s teacher needs no less than a bachelor’s degree to get a job, and much more than that to keep from being frozen on the pay scale. It is thus all across the employment landscape in America when it comes to jobs above minimum wage.
In Mom and Dad’s time, a high-school degree truly was the gold standard. In 1940, when Mom graduated from Leyden, only about half of adult Americans finished high school, and less than 5 percent earned a college degree.
But a generation later, the gold standard for employment had shifted. By 1975, three-fourths of adult Americans earned a high school degree, and almost 22 percent had a bachelor’s degree. I was one of them, enjoying the bottom of the pay scale as a teacher, and needing to advance my education further to adequately feed my growing family.
Jump a generation further: Today only ten percent of American adults fail to finish high school. More than 46 percent hold at least a two-year associate’s degree, and more than 36 percent hold a bachelor’s degree.
Because today, education beyond high school is necessary not just to get ahead, but to keep from falling far behind.
So yes, a lot has changed in America since Mom earned her high school diploma. But one thing has remained unchanged:
Because despite the upwardly sliding scale of educational requirements for basic employment, America seems locked into the belief that a high school diploma is still the gold standard. When it comes to public funding of basic, bare-bones education, a high school diploma is still the brick wall young Americans run into.
Beyond that, you’re on your own to fund your education at colleges and universities that charge more and more every year, while delivering less and less “bang for your buck” to find the right job upon graduation.
As a result, today millions of young adults are buried under college loans they may never recover through their salaries.
I was able to fund my late-60s college education with summertime factory jobs, Christmastime post office stints, and part-time work as a janitor, cafe server and lumber-mill grunt. I took no loans and graduated with no debt.
With college costs today that would be impossible, even if I worked twice the hours.
It is long past time that America recognizes that bare-bones education of our youth should extend well past the 12th grade. Other nations do, and so should we, or risk falling behind. Taxpayer funding for basic public education should no longer be anchored to early 20th century standards.
President Biden’s waiving of some student loans is a step in the right direction, and he should go further to require colleges to offer better service for more reasonable costs.
As I understand it, the loan relief applies only to public service workers (teachers, firefighters, etc.) who have paid down their federal student loans for more than a decade. And why not? If we release criminals from prison early for good behavior, why not pardon public service workers whose only “crime” was receiving federal financial help in advancing their education so they could take jobs to benefit the public?
It is not all that different from what Sweden and other countries have done for decades by funding education for two or more years beyond high school, as long as students “pay back” through public service before reaping other social service benefits, such as health care.
I can hear you clearing your throats to bellow in outraged letters to the editor: Rampant socialism! Tax and spend! An unpopular president buying votes! I pay back my loans, why shouldn’t they?
And you may be a little right. You may be a lot right.
So, write on!
Still, it is long past time that America digs deeper into its pockets to see to it that our young people are educated at a level that meets the requirements of a modern age getting more modern every day, leaving behind any person — or any nation — that is satisfied to stand still.
Because if you think education is expensive, consider the cost of ignorance.
TR Kerth is the author of the book “Revenge of the Sardines.” Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
