Yesterday, I wrote about the wealth gap as a function of educational attainment. Those households headed by a person with a bachelor’s degree enjoy an outsized portion of the wealth distribution in the US .Less than 39% of US households fall into this category, but those that do control 71% of the country’s current wealth.
The story isn’t quite as rosy for households headed by someone with “some college, no degree.” This describes less than 28% of US households, but these households control just 16% of the wealth in the United States. High school graduates head nearly one-quarter of US households, but have less than 11% of the country’s wealth, and for the 9.5% of householders who have not graduated from high school, they manage the remaining 1.8% of wealth.
There is no doubt that education is the key to accumulating wealth in the United States, but not all educational opportunities are created equal. US community colleges have not done a good job of assisting their graduates in claiming the share of wealth that should result from a post-secondary education.
You might argue that admissions selectivity has something to do with that, but that’s probably not entirely true. Community colleges may not be selective in who they admit, but they have done a poor job of creating economic opportunities for their students. Instead of focusing resources on programs that serve high-wage, high-demand employment sectors, for the most part, community colleges have settled for degree programs and non-degree workforce development training that prepare workers for low-wage jobs.
The theory is that a community college program gives a worker a starting point. Unfortunately, many people who start at a community college don’t transfer to universities. When they do, few manage to graduate with a four-year degree.
Community colleges should close the wealth gap they’ve created
Reality simply does not bear out the idea that a person in an occupational education program will pursue a four-year degree. Very likely, the person who graduates with an occupational degree will never return to post-secondary education, even when doing so may substantially increase their household income.
This is precisely why community colleges need to do a better job of creating high-wage occupational programs for students who have no intention to transfer to a university. It is also where they have utterly failed, and it explains why the wealth gap is so lopsided in favor of people who have earned a four-year degree.
Along with creating high-wage occupational programs, community colleges must also eliminate low-wage programs from their course catalogs. The likelihood that low-wage occupations need workers with a post-secondary education is small. Further, there is no justification for training workers for low-wage positions. As a matter of public policy, we cannot and should not ask people to commit themselves and their households to life on the economic margins. Our educational institutions should not collaborate with employers whose profitability depends on paying their workers poorly. It is best to leave it to these employers to figure out why they can’t find workers for their open positions and why their turnover is so high.
Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk , via Flickr
