In the US the education sector was already in crisis mode long before the pandemic, on top of the traditional issues, such as high college debt, it’s also facing new ones such as pandemic shutdowns and growing controversies over curriculum, masks, and vaccines.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in the 2020-2021 academic year international student enrollment at US universities fell by an incredible 15%.
Now the status of education, in general, is reportedly deteriorating making certain activists and politicians wonder what needs to be done. But despite all efforts by certain progressive lawmakers, high student loans just keep adding to the burden of those seeking knowledge in American universities.
Dr. Jameson Brewer is Assistant Professor of Social Foundations of Education at the University of North Georgia with expertise in education policy, surrounding issues of public schools, the privatization of schools, and issues of equity and justice.
What is your take on the expenses of education in a ‘developed’ country such as America?
In thinking about what it takes, in terms of financial cost to educate, it is something that I think every country should consider.
In fact, consider the ability to increase because whatever it is that we spend in education is a direct investment, not just into our current children and our societies and countries, but it’s a direct investment in the future.
I do think that there are some ways that the United States can think through how to more adequately and equitably fund education across different districts that tend to still remain segregated based on race and class lines.
Dr. Jameson Brewer, Assistant Professor, Social Foundations of Education, University of North Georgia
The US education system used to be held in high esteem. But today there is ample evidence to suggest that American schools perform worse than schools in many other countries.
The US comes near the bottom of the industrialized nations ranking on international tests of academic achievement in the sciences and mathematics, such as the SAT.
Personally, I think that there could be conversations about reducing some of the administrative bloats that has grown over the past couple of decades.
But then again, the money that we spend here in the United States on education should be understood as a direct investment. Not just in our current children, but who those children will become in future society as adults.
Dr. Jameson Brewer, Assistant Professor, Social Foundations of Education, University of North Georgia
Meanwhile, the country consumes more resources than any other school system in the developed world.
An increasing number of American schools have declined in quality or have been bested by school systems in other countries.
With politicians mostly remaining ignorant of the issue, American schools are less efficient than those of many other countries.
Education low priority for US establishment
Garland Nixon is a radio talk show host and political analyst, an outspoken civil libertarian and First Amendment advocate, currently serving on the National Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU.
As you know, education in the US remains quite expensive, unlike many other countries, what do you consider to be contributing factors to such a state of affairs?
I think the principal reason is that the federal government does not prioritize education.
If you look at our budget as an example, In 2020, the military budget was about $730 billion. The education budget was about 11% of that is $74 billion.
So the big problem, I think, is that the United States doesn’t spend the money necessary to upgrade our educational facilities, to provide,… the simple day-to-day needs in the classroom, oftentimes, aren’t met for the students and teachers.
So the number one problem with our educational system is that it’s such a low priority. The United States doesn’t look at the long term and it seems to be almost, you know, problematic to ask the United States to add money to the educational system.
In fact, when you talk about it in the mainstream media, what we often hear is “Well, you can’t just throw money in”.
Garland Nixon, Political Analyst, Washington DC
The US education system is marred by a series of serious issues, some of which surface in the daily news every now and again.
The United States is a country that is leading the world in various sectors, such as the military and economic development.
US education used to be free
But when it comes to education, Washington lags behind its peers, both in policymaking and the premises of free education.
Most of the money that comes in the system or into the school system, rather than coming from the federal government It comes from the locality, from the city or town or county that the schools are placed in.
And so if you live in a county that’s very wealthy, there’s a lot of tax money, those schools are very well subsidized. But if you live in an area that’s poor, there’s not as much money and those schools don’t have as much, they don’t have the resources.
So we end up with natural equality from the system and natural economic equality. Now from the issue of racial equality exists because again, people who don’t understand the history of America don’t know that when America, up until quite recently, was an apartheid system.
The way that schools worked were the white schools got the new books, the new chairs, everything new. Once they had worn them out and they were, you know, the pages were torn out of the books and the desks were broken up, they then sent it into the black schools and the black schools got everything secondhand.
Garland Nixon, Political Analyst, Washington DC
A large number of students in the country face daily struggles, many of which emanate simply from bad policies and, of course, corruption by power-hungry politicians.
As a result, the quality of education is decreasing in the United States of America while an increasing number of students prefer studying in other developed countries, mostly in Europe.
How does the US student loan system work and how does it make the students indebted for years after graduation?
Up until the mid-1980s, the federal government to some extent, but mostly the state governments, heavily subsidized the cost of attending college.
And so, while the students prior to the 1980s who attended university did have to pay portions of tuition and housing and food, those costs were very significantly lower than what they are today.
With the 1980s and the rise of neoliberalism and the reimagining of higher education as an individualistic commodity, as opposed to seeing it as an investment for the public or the common good, the cost of higher education has almost fully been shifted to the individual student.
Dr. Jameson Brewer, Assistant Professor, Social Foundations of Education, University of North Georgia
US education marred by endemic racism
More than 60 years after the lawsuit Brown versus Board of Education, which supposedly made establishing racial segregation in state schools unconstitutional, US education is still marred by racism and remains unequal.
As the percentage of students of color grows, inequality in the education sector could shift further in favor of the white minority.
READ ALSO: Germany will not export arms to Saudi Arabia over Yemen war, new government says
Bullying in schools has always existed, certainly with the rise of social media and the internet, but it feels magnified, in a lot of ways it is, right we get the sort of creation of cyberbullying and it makes it very difficult for a student who is experiencing bullying at school for them to be connected to their peers through social media 24/7 extends that experience back to the home or for the student outside of school.
The only way to address bullying and the only way to address racial slurs or racial or race-based bullying is to have conversations with students, with parents, with communities, and engage in Diversity Learning for all of our members of society.
Dr. Jameson Brewer, Assistant Professor, Social Foundations of Education, University of North Georgia
Education in the US is tough due to all these problems, but it is indeed tougher for African Americans, Hispanics, Muslims, etc.
What do you think could be done about bullying and racial slurs in the US education system?
Well, you know, the United States is again, a lot of that started with the integration of schools who you had of course, you know, black students in an entirely separate school system from the white students.
When those two were brought together there was certainly no shortage of problems as a result of that. Now, I think what we’re looking at is a reflection of the problems in our society.
So what we see in school with the issues of bullying, what we see in schools with the issue of racism and discrimination and things of that nature, are a reflection of what’s going on in the cultural disintegration of American society.
And I think the cultural disintegration is brought about by the economic inequality, by the unfortunate use of race and sex and gender and things of those nature [sic].
Garland Nixon, Political Analyst, Washington DC
Not much has been done to tackle issues related to education within the past decade. Sometimes politicians in power themselves complain about it, but to no avail.
Take former President Barack Obama and his wife, or current Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, enumerating hurdles they faced to pay off student debts:
