Last week, educational funding changes made nearly a year ago in Arizona for vocational programs were brought to light on reddit.com. Keith Wagner, a high school journalism student, interviewed State Senator John Huppenthal- who is currently running for state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Wagner grilled Huppenthal about education funding cuts. If you haven’t seen the video, you can view it here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0xvGttFPCM#t=2m4s[/youtube]
This interview, and issue, struck a cord with me. Vittana focuses on international education, but the parallels today between what’s happening in Arizona and the realities of life for our students are so striking, I had to call it out.
This video is a bit rough on Senator Huppenthal, but it does raise a bigger issue that is core to Vittana’s mission. Career and technical education (definition here) is incredibly important in any country. It teaches concrete, actionable and employable skills for jobs that are essential to any working economy.
Not only are those jobs essential, but they also make a huge difference for the students involved. In the United States, it’s the difference between working at a $7/hour job for the rest of your life and making $40/hour as an auto mechanic. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, on average a person with an associates degree will earn almost $8K more a year than someone with just a high school diploma.
At Vittana, it’s the same – Vittana students who take out loans funded by you to finish school or take vocational courses (like Teylin or Carlos) see their salaries go up by 200-300% after graduation.
There is a potentially devastating trend developing in the U.S., when support for programs like these that almost disappeared from Arizona face huge cuts. The bill in question – Arizona’s HB 2028 -cut $550 million from education funding including $11 million from vocational education programs.
Ultimately, much of the money, including that for vocational education, was restored with federal stimulus funds and other sources. It’s fortunate for Arizona that other sources of funding were available, but that’s not always the case.
Vocational and technical programs are crucial to any country’s development – whether it’s the U.S., Peru or Mongolia. It is of course important to balance budgets, but cutting education programs is fixing a short-term problem with no thought of the consequences in the future.
At Vittana, we often talk about the “last mile” of education. In developing countries, traditional aid and development have really focused on literacy, primary and secondary school. Today, because of that, an entire generation of young people is graduating high school, hoping to do more. However, they are, in reality, being led off a cliff because there’s no support beyond high school.
If you can get these students just $700 (average Vittana loan request: $657.20) and can keep them in school for just 9-12 months more, you can make a huge, huge difference with just a tiny bit of investment— you’re making good on 18 years of investment. Not only do Vittana graduates earn 200-300% more (average income increase: 226% to $18/day upon graduation) and not only does it change that person’s life, but it changes everyone’s life after them.
Take a look at Nardith, one of our first students from Peru. After finishing high school, Nardith was attending college. However, she got pregnant and, between working full-time, going to school full-time, and taking care of her newborn son, it was just too much. Fast-forward four years. Because of a Vittana loan back in September from 17 people, she was able to begin attending nursing technical school. She just graduated a couple weeks ago. Her first repayment came in last week. She’s going from making $125 per month to $292 — an increase of 233%. But, here’s the kicker: Imagine not only how Nardith’s life will change but how completely different life will be — the completely different expectations, the completely different default life trajectory — will be for her now 4-year-old son.
You hear the same story over and over again, whether it’s Peru, Mongolia or the United States. It’s the same thing. But, here’s the thing: in the United States, we already had the solution. That we’re just throwing this away boggles my mind. Developing countries have lots of other problems, but, here, right here in the United States? It’s like we’re almost regressing back to developing-country issues. Not only do we know what the solution is, we’d actually already built the solution, it’s working great and it’s doing the job.
It’s our job to make sure that keeps happening – we can all learn from and follow Keith’s example. Research proposed education cuts. Question the how, what and why. Act – locally, and globally. It can, and does, make a difference.
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