You Shouldn’t Have to Pay a College Entrance Fee to Live the American Dream

I never thought about how my college was going to be paid for. None of my friends wondered about how their colleges would be paid for. College payment was just as assumed as college attendance. And that’s the problem. Our voluntary economic segregation, and its inextricable ties to racial segregation, allows people of wealth to maintain their collective ignorance concerning the lack of access to postsecondary education for Americans in poverty. We, and by we I mean people of wealth, often take it for granted that everybody with the requisite academic skill can attend college. This is false, and the sooner we acknowledge this fact, the sooner we can dismantle our oligarchic system of education, and construct one that will enable all students the same assumption of college access that I had.

The Financial Fit

I didn’t magically come to this understanding. It took seeing the truth before my very eyes to understand the fallacy of the bootstrap American Dream ethos which holds that if someone simply works hard enough, they can attend college and earn financial security through a good paying job. Every spring, seniors in our high school in West Philadelphia bring a member of their family into school to have their financial fit meetings. They come armed with their financial aid award letters that specify college costs, offered loans, and awarded scholarships. With a teacher, students input this data into a spreadsheet that helps calculate total out-of-pocket costs. A common student’s data for an in-state public college might look like the following:

For a student whose family’s EFC (Estimated Family Contribution) on the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) application was $0. $11,000 for a lifelong-resident of Pennsylvania with a GPA of over 3.0. Whereas other states offer accessible scholarships for all residents with successful GPAs to in-state public colleges and universities, Pennsylvania does not have such a program. This is not access to education; it is the slamming of a door. The vast majority of our students have done everything we, as a society, have asked of them. They have come to school every day. They have done the work. They have passed the classes. They have applied for the colleges and the scholarships. They have played the game and followed the rules. And still, when all is said and done, [pullquote]the university gates remain closed for the simplest and most unjust of reasons; they can’t pay the entrance fee.[/pullquote] The injustice of the moment weighs heavily in the gymnasium where families sit alongside teachers, analyzing the hard truths in the spreadsheet. For too many families, the $11,000 is simply prohibitive. There are no trust funds to turn to. There aren’t houses to borrow against. There isn’t a wealthy grandparent to ask for assistance. There is community college which, here in Philadelphia despite the tireless work of many, boasts an abysmal 10 percent graduation rate. Many meetings end in tears. A few have been offered exclusive scholarships that provide access to college, but most have not. Most families say they’ll talk it over and come to a decision. Some will try to raise funds. Some will attend community college. Some will decide that their life as a student will end at their high school graduation.

A System of ‘Pay to Play’

[pullquote position="right"]The question is not whether the system is to blame; it is.[/pullquote] This is no time for talk of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. These kids have worked and earned their place in college. Their rigor, grit, and resilience is not up for debate. It is not only unjust for these kids to be denied access to postsecondary education due to their inability to pay, it is also a societal flaw that hurts us all. We would all benefit from a more educated, successful, gainfully employed population. We would all benefit from a reduction in poverty and all of the resulting societal ills. Cast aside the flimsy arguments of those who say that their children’s spaces would be taken by these other kids if they were given equal access. First, that space belongs to no one. Second, let merit decide who earns the spot, and, if need be, let’s build more houses of higher learning. Surely we can find the money to fund a college rather than a prison. The question I ponder is whether people of wealth truly understand the degree to which the university gates are closed to people of poverty. I don’t think we do. I think we know the system is unfair, but we also think that scholarships abound, that those who truly work hard can earn funding for their education. We support affirmative action in its questionable claim to lift up those who have been denied access in the past, but don’t truly understand how few choices there are for so many Americans. I have spoken with some who roll their eyes at this convenient ignorance. “Y’all know,” they tell me. “Y’all know exactly what’s going on.” Perhaps. Perhaps not. I say this because I didn’t know. Certainly as a teenager applying to colleges myself, surrounded by other privileged high schoolers, I never conceived the idea of not being able to afford school. We knew in theory that college was expensive, but it never crossed the mental threshold into truly understanding not being able to attend. And since so many of us live in social words defined by race and class, [pullquote]we don’t actually see and feel the experiences of those who do not benefit from assumed wealth.[/pullquote] We need to get off the highway and drive through one another’s neighborhoods. We need to visit one another’s schools. I strongly believe, hope maybe, that if people truly knew the depths of America’s poverty, if we saw the stark disparities in our homes and schools, and sat in on the dinner table conversations about planning for our children’s futures, we would lay down the racially cloaked arguments of bootstraps and hard work. We would see the system for what it is; a pay to play system that chauffeurs the wealthy to college, and marches the poor to, at best, menial work, or at worst, incarceration.

Photo by @sharonyc, Twenty20-licensed.

Zachary Wright

Zachary Wright is an assistant professor of practice at Relay Graduate School of Education, serving Philadelphia and Camden, and a communications activist at Education Post. Prior, he was the twelfth-grade world literature and Advanced Placement literature teacher at Mastery Charter School's Shoemaker Campus, where he taught students for eight years—including the school's first eight graduating classes. Wright was a national finalist for the 2018 U.S. Department of Education's School Ambassador Fellowship, and he was named Philadelphia's Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2013. During his more than 10 years in Philadelphia classrooms, Wright created a relationship between Philadelphia's Mastery Schools and the University of Vermont that led to the granting of near-full-ride college scholarships for underrepresented students. And he participated in the fight for equitable education funding by testifying before Philadelphia's Board of Education and in the Pennsylvania State Capitol rotunda. Wright has been recruited by Facebook and Edutopia to speak on digital education. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, he organized demonstrations to close the digital divide. His writing has been published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Philadelphia Citizen, Chalkbeat, Education Leadership, and numerous education blogs. Wright lives in Collingswood, New Jersey, with his wife and two sons. Read more about Wright's work and pick up a copy of his new book, " Dismantling A Broken System; Actions to Close the Equity, Justice, and Opportunity Gaps in American Education"—now available for pre-order!

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You Shouldn’t Have to Pay a College Entrance Fee to Live the American Dream

The Financial Fit

A System of ‘Pay to Play’

Zachary Wright

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