College: Is it worth it?
May 17, 2013 in Conversation, Education, Poverty, United Front Blog Archives
According to data collected on the cost of Minnesota education, the average student loan debt is $29,793 – the third highest average debt in the country, especially when 58% of the open jobs in Minnesota don’t require any education beyond high school. So, what do you think?
Is college really worth the expense?
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Talking About Barriers to Employment, a conversation exploring the various employment obstacles facing Minnesota’s would-be job seekers.
United Front is pleased to announce the launch of a new online caregiving community, 
“Alzheimer’s was not part of the future my husband, Ken, and I visualized, as we looked forward to our anticipated retirement, in CA. Ken had had a long career in the furniture industry, as an interior designer and executive of a large furniture company. In addition, he was a college professor of interior design and history of furniture. I was very busy as a mother, as well as speech pathologist for 30 years. I went back to school at age 59 to get another degree at U.C. Davis, to become a Literacy Coach and ultimately an adjunct professor at UCLA. During this very busy time, I had noticed some changes in Ken’s personality, behaviors and memory, here and there, over a period of several years, which I questioned. Our doctor said he felt they were signs of normal aging. As time went on, however, Ken was withdrawing more and more from our friends and social situations. Then, one day, in October 2009, Ken told me that he could not remember how to access our bank account online. 
Finding a job, even in an improving economy, has gotten much more complicated. Once upon a time, the get-a-good-education mantra held true for most Americans seeking upward mobility and a middle class existence. Increasingly, though, finding a life-sustaining career that justifies a costly education is a tough proposition for many young people.
Nearly 200,000 children ages 0 to 17 are living in poverty in Minnesota, a 60 percent increase since 2000. Not only are the numbers of children in poverty growing, the depth of poverty is growing as well. In that same time period, the number of children living in extreme poverty ($11,525 for a family of four) increased by more than 100 percent (Children’s Defense Fund—Minnesota, 2012). Education and poverty form a close and complex interrelationship for children in our community.
Grant Abbott, a Faces of Poverty participant, posed the question we’re talking about now: are people equally free?
