The Danger of Telling Poor Kids that College is Key to Social Mobility (Essay Sample)

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College as the Key to Financial Independence
The article “The Danger of Telling Poor Kids That College Is the Key to Social Mobility” was published on The Atlantic, written by Andrew Simmons on January 16, 2014 (Simmons n.p.). The author argues that higher education has been presented to children from low-income backgrounds as the road to financial independence, thereby training them to become good employees. Contrastingly, kids from privileged families have no financial hurdles. Thus, educators present higher institutions as an opportunity for intellectual awakening stimulating innovativeness and creativity, leading to a more balanced ambitious life and work ethic. Educators need to present higher institutions as places for stimulating intellectual awakening.
Simmons arranges his content inductively, beginning with facts before presenting the conclusions and recommendations. For instance, the fourth paragraph starts with facts about Isabella’s economic struggles. Simmons then presents how Isabella desired to nurture her intellectual passion hence her desire to join oceanography. Finally, he avows how college will allow Isabella to live her academic dreams instead of financial windfalls. The next paragraph identifies Simmons’s students as financially underprivileged. Consequently, the students fantasize about jolly futures provided through the best colleges. Simmons lastly observes that the students desire to attend prestigious institutions, not because of the academic achievement instilled by the school but financial prosperity, which disregards the pre-professional spirit.
In continuation, Simmons employs anecdotes to certify his argument that educators present college as a key to financial propensity rather than intellectual awakening. For instance, Simmons recalls editing the admission essay by a 12th-grader in his class. He notes the essay's distinctiveness made Isabella’s thoughts regarding the shallowness of college characterization remarkable. He uses anecdotes when describing where some of his students live, that is the Black and Latino pupils. Furthermore, he uses anecdotes to inform the audience of his students' preoccupation with money, as he has observed. Anecdotes make Simmons’s story convincing and more real.
The article's target audience was particular to ensure the right people get Simmons’s arguments and thus act accordingly. First, Simmons targeted the low-income populace who are the main losers from the current indoctrination that college is the key to financial success. Simmons directly addresses that audience as he says, “People are privileged to follow their hearts in life, to spend their time crafting an identity instead of simply surviving” (Simmons n.p.). The article is also single-minded to influence educators to propagate a different mindset into the kids of the less privileged to promote innovativeness and open-mindedness necessary for professional development. Teachers are a crucial audience who will engage in “selling” college as “an opportunity to experience an intellectual awakening.”
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