Homeless college students.
When I first read that phrase, it sounded like an oxymoron. I had to read it three times before it settled into my consciousness. But as soon as it had settled, its implications began to grow on me and cause serious alarm.
Before World War II, higher education in America was primarily reserved for the financially and sometimes intellectually wealthy. Then, the New Deal programs and GI Bill consummated the White middle class. Colleges opened their doors to this post-war generation and their Baby Boomers. Also, the post-war desegregation struggle and the Black Campus Movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s forced open the doors of higher education for the rising Black middle class and other traditionally excluded groups. And the mid-century increase in the number of community colleges made the slice of Americans attending college even larger. As the 20th century marched on and agricultural, industrial, and manufacturing doors continued to close for Americans in their journey toward a livelihood, the doors to universities stayed open.
Into these collegiate doors are walking an increasing homeless student population in the 21st century. The Great Recession and the decision to invest America’s declining heap of resources in destruction abroad as opposed to construction at home is the cause of this seemingly oxymoron. Funds for colleges and universities continue to be slashed along with funds for student aid and programs. Meanwhile, the aspiring student population is growing increasing impoverished. In sum, there is a shrinking pool of money in higher education at the same time that more and more students are leaping into that pool in need.
Community college enrollment rose as the economy fell. And not only are newly unemployed workers taking advantage of attractive programs at community colleges, but the impoverished are as well.
“It is a growing trend that people who are persistently poor and unhoused are taking advantage of programs at community colleges,” Neil Donovan, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., told the Star-Tribune.
College is popularized as the “escalator” to success in this country. But many financially strapped students are being diverted to the nearby stairs. Homelessness—not family issues, laziness, under-preparedness, or peer pressure—is part of that grueling trek up the incline, and it is regularly halting their progress.
