Letter: Keeping the poor out of college serves to benefit the rich

Editor,

Looking at the Bernie-inspired Clinton plan to initially offer free in-state college tuition for those whose family makes a total of only $80,000 - ie, the poor - many American business owners do not even want this because, plain and simple, they do not want more college graduates flooding the market with their higher wage demands, especially liberal arts degree holders “with their noses in the air.”

What such employers want are zombies, warm bodies is all, but so many born in the USA getting college degrees simply do not want to do grunt work, or at best white collar jobs that are tedious because they require boringly repetitive tasks – the kind that you could not possibly do even if you are low-level creative unless you are on at least a mild antidepressant.

In the sexier jobs, such as for media and fashion, they are already getting away with this by having just high school graduates be interns, even older ones, presumptively shadowing regular employees (threatening this way because those that are shadowed feel they could lose their job to the shadower).

But no, a college graduate working at your ol’ Mom & Pop joint can be a threat, especially when their grown son or daughter has a “job” right there, but were too lazy growing up as rich kids to finish college and dropped out to party. Then the fact that you are better qualified than Sonny Boy really sticks out.

Proof of all this is that so many of us already with college degrees omit any mention of said degree on our application for basic work with which to pay rent and eat at the same time, for fear of coming across as overqualified. We are totally willing to do lower level jobs

And what is this about free college tuition letting a flood of students get in who have no real interest in studying hard and doing well, because they do not have to pay? This argument misses the point, because for one thing, all colleges have certain minimum qualification requirements for admission. For another, even if the GPA bar is lowered, a corresponding college entrant availing of Clinton’s plan who has grown up and been through an unsafe high school in an unsafe neighborhood would find the college experience to be significantly safer, because people who have made it to and who work on college campuses are more evolved, not just in their thinking. So said student can and does blossom, showing great improvement.

Historically it has always been to the benefit of the rich to keep the poor from moving on up. In a capitalistic system such as ours, huge profits can be made from this status quo, and off the backs of the poor. Allowing the once poor to easily and without debt (later indentured servitude) go through college would allow the middle class to grow again – a much needed vector for the political stability of our country.

Arun Ahuja

UNM student