Review Of What College Can Mean To The Other America By Mike Rose

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The very controversial and widely known article “What College Can Mean to the Other America” under the authority of Mike Rose – for the sake of clarity and objectivity – touches upon three main points regarding formal education in America, which are: well-round education as whether a private or public good, governmental intervention in helping the less fortunate, and lastly, poverty in America is regarded, especially by the upper classes, as a prerequisite for social hierarchy and economic progression. Allow me to further elaborate and support these three main points, in my perspective anyway, throughout the paragraphs to follow. Rose under some instances in his article strongly advocated for government intervention in preventing or at least …show more content…

In response to providing everyone regardless of their position in the American social hierarchy with the same quality and degree of education, similar to countries like Germany and Norway, Rose stated that the problems previously mentioned cannot and will not justify eliminating educational assistance to those who deeply need and appreciate its value; and, this was made clear to me when he noted that, “…while the poor he wrote about were invisible in time of abundance, ours are visible in terrible recession, although invisible in most public policy [Rose 195].” Moreover, even if the lower-to-middle classes in America do go to a postsecondary education, they are not receiving an education that would significantly make a difference and allow them to prosper as professionals due to their lack of economic resources, and opportunities considering that most attend a two-year community college, if that. Digressing from Rose’s arguments, I wanted point out that both inside and outside the walls of a community college, students are regarded as vacuous and unqualified members of our society despite the fact that most of them had to overcome several social and cultural barriers to get there. Therefore, according to Rose, the source of the extreme poverty in America and perhaps in the world is not about the shortage of intelligence or professionalism, but because of a history of deprived/poor education and the nonexistence of an economic