This November no one can deny that we live in a deeply polarized society. E pluribus unum — “from many, one” — now seems an almost quaint motto. Profound divisions are not healthy for democracy. Throughout U.S. history, starting with the U.S. Constitution in 1787, leaders have managed to bring citizens together across deep divides.

As someone who has devoted her career to higher education, I’m dismayed that the bachelor’s degree is a frightening marker between “elites” and working class. Current rhetoric has weaponized the distance between college graduates and those without degrees. Those with bachelor’s degrees are accused of snobbism. Some without four-year degrees make self-protective assertions that they never wanted to join a club that wouldn’t let them in.

While I support apprenticeship programs and career / technical education, I also believe that every citizen should have the opportunity for big-picture learning. We cannot afford to further polarize society by training many students only for jobs, while we educate the more privileged for multiple career opportunities, problem solving and citizenship.

I have long believed that students from varying backgrounds living and studying together over a four-year period, with ample opportunities for new experiences, is the best preparation for democratic citizenship and a full life.

A November 14 message from the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition (CLDE) staff made this point clear: “Narrow learning for the many and big picture, public-spirited learning for the fortunate? This is the very essence of unequal opportunity. And it is a problem we will need to solve if we want to help college students — all college students — explore and claim their own role in the world’s most powerful democracy.”

Some might argue that many citizens do not need a four-year college education, and it’s elitist to suggest that they should have it. But let’s look at the facts. A bachelor’s degree is closely associated with a better life. David Brooks recently argued in The Atlantic (paywall) that the diploma divide isn’t only an educational and political divide but a profound social divide, creating a caste system:

High-school-educated people die eight years younger than college-educated people, on average. They are much more likely to perish from opioid addiction, to have children out of wedlock, to be obese, and to say they have no close friends.

Many of us who are now castigated as elitists started out from humble backgrounds. I did! Like many, I was lucky to attend high quality Philadelphia neighborhood public schools and receive generous scholarship support from the University of Pennsylvania.

As Philadelphia citizens, we are obligated once again to offer a hand to our neighbors, not to join an imagined “elite” group looking down on the rest of the population. At this year’s Ideas We Should Steal Festival, I learned a disturbing fact from Michael Forman, Chairman and CEO, FS Investments. As Forman noted, in Philadelphia, “if you are born poor you die poor.” This is not the Philadelphia of my childhood. We must make sure it is not the Philadelphia of today and tomorrow.

A bold idea for Philadelphia

The Inquirer recently designated 13 small, private, Philadelphia-area universities, including LaSalle and Rosemont, as “financially fragile.”

These residential liberal arts colleges are local treasures. I have long believed that students from varying backgrounds living and studying together over a four-year period, with ample opportunities for new experiences, is the best preparation for democratic citizenship and a full life.

Although Penn is not a residential liberal arts college, it offers similar experiences for living and learning, accomplishing the etymological meaning of “education,” leading outward to new experiences. For me, this leading outward led to teaching English at Haverford College, serving as a professor and administrator at Arcadia University (née Beaver College) and as Associate Dean of the College at Brown University. But the outward thrust of education never involved an uprooting.

“Narrow learning for the many and big picture, public-spirited learning for the fortunate? This is the very essence of unequal opportunity.” — Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement Coalition

I have always believed, to continue the garden metaphor, that leaves and flowers flourish when roots remain strong. Moving to public higher education in 1988, I devoted the rest of my career to bringing some of the advantages of residential liberal arts education to underfunded regional state universities in Arizona, Alaska and Illinois. The lack of resources made that extremely difficult, but we did the best we could.

Here is a bold idea to preserve residential liberal arts colleges and to give more Philadelphia students access to them. I suggest that Penn could form a consortium with the 13 schools designated as “financially fragile” and with the area’s regional publics, West Chester and Cheyney. Penn’s admissions office could work out plans for cooperative outreach and recruiting, creating a consortium of college preparation for Philadelphia middle school and high school students.

I specify students living within Philadelphia city limits because Penn has a special obligation to the city where it lives. Funding a program like this might qualify as a quasi-PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes). Penn, now rejecting about 94 percent of its applicants, would not lose anything by this plan. And Philadelphia students would gain a great deal. Maybe the following suggestion falls in the “dream on” category, but Penn could even make a trailblazing commitment to Philadelphia students aspiring to a broad-based education by offering scholarship assistance to some students who wind up attending consortium-partner schools.

When I was president of Governors State University (GSU) in the south suburbs of Chicago, I participated in a small version of this kind of cooperation, although without shared scholarship support. Under the leadership of University of Illinois (UI) President Timothy Killeen and then Executive Vice President Barbara Wilson (now president of the University of Iowa), UI cooperated and funded joint recruiting with GSU and other Illinois regional publics. Rather than assuming that the prestigious University of Illinois was the only place to apply, students could learn about smaller, more intimate campuses. Just so, if Penn were to sponsor joint recruiting, some students might find that Rosemont, LaSalle, West Chester, Cheyney or Arcadia is really a better choice for them.

I fully understand that even with extraordinary effort on the part of universities and colleges, it will simply not be possible for many students to attend a university or liberal arts college during the traditional four-year time span (ages 18 to 22). In addition to the suggestions in this article, universities and colleges must expand cooperation with the Community College of Philadelphia, increase outreach to adult students, offer credit for skills gained outside college walls and support the many anti-snobbism suggestions I have made in previous Citizen articles.

Philadelphia-area high schools and community colleges can strengthen the liberal arts requirements in career/technical programs. California’s High Tech High is a great example. Penn should expand the outreach to local high schools offered by the Netter Center. Students are already interested, as sophomore Arshiya Pant attests in the Daily Pennsylvanian. As a Penn alumna, I call on the Alumni Office to reach out to local Penn graduates to help with counseling and recruiting students in local middle school and high schools.

And here’s another bold idea: What if LaSalle and/or Arcadia offered campus space to Lincoln High school students who are dangerously crammed into a building designed for one-half the current population. The School District could provide bussing. The colleges could organize classroom space so as to accommodate, maybe the Lincoln senior class, on a college campus with all the opportunities to taste big-picture thinking.

Practices like these must be undertaken. The necessary expansion of opportunities for broad-based higher education involves a paradigm shift, mitigating the elitism dividing this nation.

College choice should not depend on privilege or income. Philadelphia-area colleges and universities must cooperate to bring down the bachelor degree wall separating the haves from the have-nots. That’s the way to address the dangerous polarization of U.S. society.

Things we can do

• • Fund scholarships at Philadelphia-area liberal arts colleges and regional publics.
  • Encourage area colleges to strengthen liberal arts courses.
  • Communicate with your alma mater about creating partnerships with other colleges and with the Community College of Philadelphia.
  • Support the Netter Center at Penn.
  • Work to eradicate the snobbism that is polarizing U.S. society.

Elaine Maimon, Ph.D., is an Advisor at the American Council on Education. She is the author of Leading Academic Change: Vision, Strategy, Transformation. Her long career in higher education has encompassed top executive positions at public universities as well as distinction as a scholar in rhetoric/composition. Her co-authored book, Writing In The Arts and Sciences, has been designated as a landmark text. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum.

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