hellojan

I've been sifting through a lot of threads about merit aid and the disparity between the wealthy and working class as it pertains to college admissions. I wanted to share a passage from an old New York Times article by Janny Scott and David Leonhart.

"One way to think of a person's position in society is to imagine a hand of cards. Everyone is dealt four cards, one from each suit: education, income, occupation, and wealth, the four commonly used criteria for gauging class. Face cards in a few categories may land a player in the upper middle class. At first, a person's class is his parents' class. Later, he may pick up a new hand of his own; it is likely to resemble that of his parents, but not always."

The article goes on to argue that mobility, firmly at home in the details of the American dream library, is all but dead. What do you think? Are the individual stations (and admission decisions) of American kids no longer the products of their own hard work? Or, as the authors may suggest, are we increasingly products of parental goading investment?

sueinphilly

Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide - New York Times

Now I have to read the article....