Ethnic Minority Students in the United States
Most people in the United States believe that education is essential for achieving one's goals and can take them anywhere they desire. Ethnic minority students, on the other hand, are at a disadvantage when compared to non-ethnic students when it comes to financial and academic resources. More time is needed by "African-American and Hispanic students" than their Caucasian counterparts to complete an undergraduate degree (Ward, Strambler, and Linke 312). As a result of this information, it is safe to say that ethnic minority students face more difficulties in college and therefore have a longer time to complete their degree. College tuition continues to rise, inner-city secondary schools provide poor education, and low academic self-esteem all contribute to a high dropout rate among ethnic minorities. This causes them to repeat the cycle of minorities living underprivileged lives. However, if legislation increased educational funding for inner-city secondary schools, the problems faced by ethnic minorities in college would be greatly reduced or eliminated.
Since most ethnic minority students come from low-income families, they often have to shoulder the burden of covering the rising costs of attending college on their own. When compared to the CPI, tuition has increased by over 1,000% since the early 1980s, according to college counselor and columnist Ralph Becker. (1). Ethnic minorities face a financial barrier to attending college because of the high cost of tuition. It has been suggested that "minorities are priced out of... colleges and are... dropping out because they can't [pay] tuition [and fees]" by Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter Renee Mitchell. (par.14). Ethnic minority college students who work long and exhausting shifts in order to pay for their education are not uncommon. Working long hours does not leave much time for one to devote to studying and completing assignments, resulting in their inability to achieve academic success.
Additionally, many ethnic minority students have a hard time adjusting to the academic demands of college because of the poor quality of education they received in secondary school, which makes it difficult for them to succeed. As a result of the lack of funding for inner-city secondary schools, many students find themselves ill-prepared for college-level coursework. School districts with high minority enrollments received less per-pupil funding than districts with lower minority enrollments, as shown in the chart "Minority Funding Gaps by State," which was based on national data on educational funding (Clemmitt 364). A lack of college-level coursework for ethnic minorities has a detrimental effect on their chances of success in college. Most ethnic minority students have low self-esteem as a result of their inadequate preparation for college-level coursework, and this has a negative impact on their academic performance, decreasing the likelihood that ethnic minority students will complete college.
It has been found that "students who are academically unprepared for the challenges of college level coursework" are more likely to drop out at the postsecondary level, according to research (Ward, Strambler, and Linke 313). In many cases, ethnic minority students are ill-prepared for college, leading to low self-esteem and causing them to drop out of school. According to the data from 2011, only 20% of African-American students and 13% of Hispanic students had earned a bachelor's degree or higher, this could be the reason for the disparity (Ward, Strambler, and Linke 313). Ethnic minority students with low self-esteem are more likely to drop out of college than their peers with higher self-esteem. Due to a lack of academic success, ethnic minority students are less likely to complete college than their non-ethnic peers self-esteem. Ethnic minority college students' lack of achievement eventually leads to their living in poverty, a cycle that many adults in minority communities are caught in. "[p]ersistently low academic performance, graduation rates, college enrollment and completion rates among African American students," say C. Feliciano and M. Ashtiani affect their ability to make the move from school to work successfully (qtd. in Ward, Strambler, and Linke 313). In the past, if someone didn't have a four-year college degree, they were considered uneducated.
She may still be able to land a job with a decent salary. It is not necessary to have a college degree in order to compete in the job market in this "new, global, technical economy" (Clemmitt 9). Because of the rise of multinational corporations, having a four-year college degree is becoming increasingly valuable in today's job market. In other words, ethnic minority students who are unable to earn a degree are more likely to be employed in low-wage jobs that do not allow them to lead a privileged life.
Ethnic minority students don't do well in college because the cost of college is going up, they don't have the academic skills they need to do well in college, and they don't have the motivation to finish school because they have low self-esteem. This causes them to repeat the cycle of living in poverty. Students from ethnic minorities are born into this cycle, and many of them struggle to get out of it with few tools. Everyone should be able to build a better life for themselves, especially those who do it in a legal way. But most students from ethnic minorities are in situations where the odds are against them.
There are a number of ways to stop this terrible thing that has become the norm in society. Many experts say that the best and most practical way to close the education gap between ethnic and non-ethnic students is to give inner-city high schools more money for education.
This would make sure that ethnic minority students have the same chances as non-ethnic students to do well in college and, ultimately, in life. Research shows that putting more money into education "eliminates between two-thirds and all of the differences in adult outcomes between people who grew up in poor families and those who didn't" (qtd. in Yettick). If school districts in inner cities spent more on education, ethnic minority students would have access to better teachers and, as a result, a better education. Most critics say that "making sure every classroom has a highly qualified teacher is essential to closing achievement gaps and making sure students learn as much as they can" (Clemmitt).
But because they pay their teachers so little, many urban schools have a hard time getting qualified teachers to work there. A veteran reporter on social policy, Marcia Clemmitt, explains this difference: Most of the time, schools with the most needs and, as a result, the hardest working conditions have the hardest time keeping good teachers. Many schools that are hard to staff are high-poverty inner-city schools that, because they are in economically depressed or isolated areas, pay less and don't have the amenities that other schools do districts are looking for teachers.
That is, giving inner-city schools more money for education would bring in more qualified teachers who could help students get ready for college. Also, students from low-income families, who are mostly from ethnic minority groups, would benefit from more money spent on education for life. People who went to inner-city schools that spent more "were 20% less likely to drop out" into poverty. Their individual wages were 25% higher than they would have been without the changes, and their family incomes were 52% higher (Yettick par. 7).
With this information, it's clear that the amount of money put into school districts has a big effect on the lives of students and helps them break out of the cycle of being poor. To make educational equity a reality, legislation would have to implement a "financial mechanism that achieves equal educational opportunity by eliminating or substantially reducing the link between local financial resources available to a school district and its ability to provide public education" (Reschovsky par. 3). In short, the government would have to make a new financial plan that gives inner-city schools a lot more money.
"Local property tax continues to provide a major source of revenue for school districts," districts with a lot of property wealth will spend more on public education and offer a better quality public education than districts with less property wealth poorer school districts" (Reschovsky par. 4). Inner-city schools do not get enough money from their communities because they are not in wealthy areas. Joydeep Roy, a professor at Columbia University and a senior economist at the New York City Independent Budget Office, says that it can be hard to compare states when each has its own way of paying for things (qtd. in Yettick par. 29). It wouldn't make sense to say that a national financial reform of the school system would be easy, but it could be done.
If the government cut its budget and spent more on education, it would be better. Ethnic minority students haven't had access to good education for a long time because they haven't had access to well-educated, high-standard teachers. This has hurt the many people from ethnic minorities have to work jobs that don't pay enough or aren't very satisfying. In the end, the problems that ethnic minority college students face lead to them living poor lives. But a difference like this can be fixed by giving more money to schools. It's time to change how money is handled across the country that makes it possible for every student to get a good education that sets him or her up for a bright future. Also, everyone should have the same chance to make the world a better place life on their own.
