To the topic for today:
Ponyboy Curtis is a Greaser, and the protagonist of S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders. My son Rio is playing the role of Johnny in Missoula's Hellgate High School's stage adaptation of the story, and while Johnny dies (as a result of a heroic action saving schoolchildren from burning to death inside an abandoned church he and Ponyboy had taken refuge in after Johnny killed a Soc in self defense), Ponyboy it seems will go on to transcend his lower class existence by drawing on his inherent sensitivities and literary interests to attend college and have social mobility.
The story (sorry, but see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsiders_%28novel%29 for a synopsis) is about class warfare between adolescents or young adults. In the late 1960s, when Ponyboy would have matriculated to college, the American public universities were just entering their glory years as highly accessible and affordable institutions of higher education, but today they have begun to resemble and function more like exclusive private schools that even the Soc's of Tulsa would have had difficulty gaining admission to. How can this happen?
This story is as much about class warfare as The Outsiders, and is rooted in the structural and fiscal transformation of the American economy and politics that have occurred since the ascendancy of neoliberal policies beginning in 1980. The fact is that U.S. public universities are choosing to attempt to improve their ratings (nebulous ones from US News, ABC News, and Forbes) by diverting what was previously need-based financial aid from those who needed it to those who "merit" it based on SAT and ACT scores and their high school resumes. Why? These ratings help to boost the recruitment of out-of-state students who will pay higher levels of tuition and help, in a large way, to sustain the economic viability of the university in an era where public spending for higher education has been steadily decreasing because of the neoliberal agenda that promotes decreased taxation on the 1% and state responsibility for higher ed funding. Enter the Tea Party. So Ponyboy has been squeezed out, as have been countless young people of the working and lower middle classes and people of color. The statistics show that such groups produce a lower proportion of potential students who have the required level of merit as the middle middle and upper middle classes, and the 1% of course. And Ponyboy is less likely than ever to complete his education - so he will have a huge debt and no degree and a lower wage too!
These facts are well documented in two fine books, The Future of Higher Education by Dan Clawson and Max Page of UMASS Boston, and Saving State U: Why We Must Fix Public Higher Education by Nancy Folbre of UMASS Amherst (full references below). The are highly accessible (digestible) and highly affordable ($10 and $15, respectively)! It is notable that both books were written by scholars in the UMASS system, which has undergone considerable neoliberal stress in the last few years and which has spawned PHENOM (Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts). I highly recommend both books to anyone and everyone with an interest in higher education (an economic necessity for individuals and the nation at large) including students, parents,grandparents, guardians, teachers, professors, contingent faculty, administrators, and legislators. This is as essential reading today as "_____ for Dummies." Check them out and vote to support higher education!
Clawson, Dan, and max Page. 2011. The Future of Higher Education. New York: Routledge.
Folbre, Nancy. 2010. Saving State U: Why We Must Fix Public Higher Education. New York: The New Press.
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