Monday, April 13th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
The Third Task Force Meeting: College Affordability for the Middle Class
The first two meetings of the Middle Class Task Force were focused on Green Jobs and the Recovery Act, both of which will create a fundamental shift in our economy and the way it affects and lifts up the middle class here in America. The Green Jobs meeting featured experts explaining how what was once an abstract concept is now being translated into bread on the kitchen table, while the Recovery Act meeting discussed how that legislation will help middle class families, town by town and community by community.
For any family that has sent a child off to college and faced tuition costs that rivaled the total costs of their mortgage, the topic of the third meeting needs much less explanation. On Friday April 17th, the Task Force will hold its next meeting at the University of Missouri St. Louis. The meeting, titled "Making College More Affordable for our Families," will also be attended by Dr. Jill Biden, who has been an educator for 28 years and is currently at Northern Virginia Community College with a focus on English and writing. It's an issue that often gets overlooked in the midst of staggering job losses and stock prices plummeting – but it’s a critical one to the middle class and it will get its proper attention this Friday.
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Who is the middle class today? And why focus on affordability just for them? As a former resident of the "middle class", I now find myself in a place I never imagined I would be, in that dark place b/t qualifying for assistance and not quite broke enough to pay our bills or mortgage. We choose b/t food for our children, a car payment so my husband can work, and a roof over our head. Forgoing health care and seeing my children in clothes torn and too small for them. All these things direct me to believe I should be defined no longer as a part of the "middle class" but in a place where dreams of college for my children feel just like that, dreams . . . a nightmare really, from where we were just a couple years ago.
ReplyDeleteWhere does my hope lie?