County poverty: Education helps provide a way out

from The Ithaca Journal

There is no yellow brick road on the path out of poverty.

Anyone who read The Journal's yearlong series about poverty in Tompkins County could appreciate how hard it is for folks to climb out of the financial basement and up the ladder to make ends meet above the federal government's poverty threshold, $21,200 (“Finding a path out of poverty,” May 3).

For all the success stories, such as Jessica Brown, 26, who is no longer dependent on social services as she was nine years ago, there are many others who are struggling.
As with many issues confronting our nation, the truth in helping people find a way to get financial stability in their lives lies somewhere in the middle of diametrically opposite opinions. But while partisans argue their cases in the court of public opinion, there are two key issues to focus on.

The first issue is wages. In earlier installments of the series, advocates for the poor pointed toward a living wage as a means to help people reach economic stability. That's not possible for all businesses, but is a worthy goal for which to strive.

The second issue is education. People who hold professional degrees experience significantly lower unemployment rates than people who receive only a high school diploma or less education, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. As a worker's level of education rises, so do their earnings, statistics show.

Herein lies the problem. How do we get more people more schooling beyond high school? We can argue all we want about what causes what, but the fact remains society must continue to do something about poverty, no matter what its cause. Education is a tried-and-true indicator of earning higher wages and avoiding unemployment lines. Individuals must also be motivated to make the climb.

One example of a way to help is the Public Assistance Comprehensive Education program offered at Tompkins Cortland Community College, which is the only college in New York that still offers the program. PACE helps families receiving social services funding attend Tompkins Cortland Community College at no cost. At one time, 14 colleges participated, but the program evolved into a different program after 1993 in some areas and died off in others.

Poverty has high costs to individuals, governments and society. If government wanted to truly help those at the bottom, it would fund more programs such as PACE and make it easier for people to afford post-high school educational pursuits. This includes funding for education aimed at helping people who live above the poverty threshold, too.

If government is looking for a way to do this it should look no further than recent state and federal budgets. The New York state Legislature could tap into the $300 million it recently doled out through member items. The federal government should look at the billions “earmarked” in the 2008 appropriations bills. A small reduction in either, diverted toward programs to help lower the cost of education, would pay big dividends. Meanwhile, colleges could help by further tapping into the billions locked away in endowments. With so much money floating around, it is obvious that more can be done.

The payback for helping pay for an education can be measured in dollars and cents by a reduction in social services' costs. But it can also be measured in a much more important fashion.