Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Sunday, June 22, 2014

This Must Be The Fault Of Teachers And Public Schools

From the Murdoch Post:

Life’s traditional milestones of marriage, home and children do not hold any currency for today’s millennials due to lack of cash.

Many young adults, facing a difficult job market, suffer from a failure to launch their lives and leave the safety of the family home. Many must continue to rely in some part on parents for financial support, according to the findings of a new survey.

“The majority of young adults are struggling to achieve financial security in their transition from college to adulthood,” according to the Arizona Pathways to Life Success for University Students (APLUS). It is an annual study that polls some 1,000 young people who are making the transition from college to post-graduate life.

...

Indeed, financial problems are also changing how some young adults are running their lives in their 20s, the survey said.

“Many participants reported that marriage (28 percent) and having children were not important life goals; (19 percent) felt home ownership unimportant, and (16 percent) rated living on their own as unimportant,” the survey said.

The survey also showed that about half of respondents continue to need financial support. And it isn’t just a problem of unemployment. The survey found as well that half of those still getting help from their parents have full-time jobs.

“I think the economy has been a factor and also the fact that high student debt is very well documented and is causing concern,” according to Ted Beck, president and chief executive officer of the National Endowment for Financial Education, which worked on the poll.

The Post piece finishes with two stories of young people who are "beating the odds'" and making it in NYC by working numerous part-time jobs and /or being "serious" and "diligent" - which is a way of saying that those who aren't making it aren't willing to work hard or be serious and diligent.

But of course the reality is, systemically, young adults are screwed these days.

Debt, job prospects, companies using "internships" as a way to never have to hire entry level employees - these are all difficult obstacles to overcome.

The economy is creating jobs - but they're mostly low-paid service jobs.

And of course some of the careers that used to provide a decent living for people - like teaching - are being destroyed by the Wall Street types.

Dunno how any of this ends up, but you can see that the current trajectory is not sustainable.

And despite what Duncan or Obama claim, the problems young adults face at starting their adult lives and taking care of themselves financially are not caused by bad schools or bad teachers.

They're caused by a system that is fundamentally weighted toward plutocracy - one that gets weighted more and more that way every year.

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