English Quantitative Research

Student’s Name
Professor’s Name
Course
Date
A Response To Paul Tough’s Who Gets To Graduate?
The American education system has been criticized for its effect on social and economic inequality, especially in amplifying the gap between the rich and the poor instead of reducing it. In most cases, students from minority racial and economic groups are unable to achieve academically not because they do not have the skills and prior academic required, but because those who graduated are selected based on the education or income achievement of their families. Tough in his article “Who Gets to Graduate?” is right that the US higher education is flawed since it produces graduates based not on students’ abilities to perform academically, but their family’s financial strengths or educational achievement.
Similar concerns of how the American higher education continues to discriminate the minority groups in the US have been raised before. Usually, it is the discriminating effects it has against students from low-income areas that are problematic to Americans as Tough (3) explains or the financial burden it places on these same students as Draut (4) points out in his essay “Occupy College.” Interestingly, both authors are conscious of the historical situation of American education. Tough (1) reveals that Vanessa Brewer’s family history is that of non-graduates for 18 years since her mother dropped out of high school. Unlike tough, however, Draut (1) in a brief comparison between his school education and that of his parent’s generation is meant to reveal the way higher learning has deteriorated over the years.

Both seem to agree on the flaws in the higher education system, and that those at the receiving end of its unfair treatment are blacks since they are the most unemployed, politically underrepresented, and as the cycle continues, the most uneducated.
One unique milestone Tough has made in his essay is to reveal the conspiracy within the University of Texas that ensures that only the students from families that have achieved in education and finance. Tough (9) notes that 40 percent of the students who enroll for a four-year college course do not graduate after six years since they are poor. Yet, about 90 percent of students belonging to rich families finish their degree (Tough 10). Since those who achieve in education are those who graduate, who in turn must be are well off financially, it turns out that being financially is what a student need and not the ability to perform academically. As a result, the graduation gap widens and the rich vs. poor family conflict can be observed from the high vs. low scoring pattern on the graduation list respectively.
In brief, author Paul Tough is right on his thesis that the US higher education system is inadequate in bringing in the equality of masses required through education. He points out how Vanessa Brewers, a bright student who ends up with low chances of graduating, merely because she comes from low-income areas. Such concern has been raised before and it turns out Tough is as right as other authors of the same education problems
Works Cited
Sklar, Holly. “Growing Gulf between Rich and the Rest of US.” Dissidentvoice.Org, 2005, http://dissidentvoice.org/Oct05/Sklar1005.htm. Accessed 23 Nov 2018.
Tough, Paul. “Who Gets To Graduate?” Nytimes.Com, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/who-gets-to-graduate.html. Accessed 23 Nov 2018.