When assessing the health of the labor market, having perspective born of fact versus media hype is essential when defining a plan for weathering the economic storm, especially for those on the cusp of entering the job market for the first time after earning an undergraduate or graduate degree. Or, our current economic situation as…
The hope of a triumphant return to four year college campuses all over the world for the quintissential residential college experience, is quickly being deflated as one after another, college administrators are shutting down and sometimes, sending kids home—University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Michigan State University, and University of Notre Dame just to name…
Caption: Jen Grantham/Getty Images/iStockphoto Although the causes behind the shrinking of the American middle class are complicated, the interdependent, economic relationship with the modern American educational industrial complex is not in doubt. As academic achievements plateau at the average, middle class families are spending more funds to supplement educational experiences, like extracurricular activities. Additionally, greater…
Creative Marbles’ Jill Yoshikawa was a featured guest on Your California Life, a local morning telecast in Sacramento, California, discussing the COVID-related disruption of education on high school and college students, as well as their families. For more information about how Jill Yoshikawa, EdM, a UC San Diego and Harvard alum, helps students and parents…
Parents, students, neighbors, the old, the young and all points along the age spectrum crave a return to a time before COVID-19, when life seemed to unfold predictably, though, maybe at times too predictably where one could count on what next week, season or year would bring and even somewhat plan accordingly in order to…
Starting in Fall 2021, without required standardized test scores, University of California (UC) admissions evaluations will likely be more subjective, as the interpretation of an applicant’s qualifications may not be balanced by a more objective test score. As the suspension of test score requirements will extend through Fall 2025, which includes current seventh graders, potential…
As the 2020-21 school year dawns, with the United States mired in the global COVID-19 health emergency with no signs of abating, given vaccines or treatment protocols have yet to materialize, university administrators are scrambling to effectively respond, if even possible, in an increasingly political environment. In the heat of the epic man versus nature…
The American middle class is shrinking, as educational achievement plateaus at the average level of attainment and more middle class families compensate the lagging educational achievement with discretionary spending on extracurricular activities and supplemental academic support services. By the late 1970’s, the collapse of American manufacturing sector made way for the meteoric rise of the…
“Plans don’t survive contact with the enemy”, pith advice on the dawn of the new school year, especially when the enemy is multifacted and the commander is a novel virus. Those who will thrive in the 2020-21 school year, are the one’s who are flexible and lean into the disruption, instead of exhausting themselves trying…
Life is divided into three terms – that which was, which is, and which will be. Let us learn from the past to profit by the present, and from the present, to live better in the future. –William Wordsworth We crave static and loathe dynamic, but today’s reality flips that paradigm on its head. Yet,…
As the new 2020-21 school year dawns, parents’ and students’ sentiments are mixed. While no one wants to acquire the virus, a source of much misery, distance learning—an oxymoronic concept as knowledge acquistion requires a trust that, initially, is most effectively established when there’s the least amount of physical distance between student and teacher—a continued…
Millennials, a generation the Pew Research Center defines as those born between 1981 and 1996, are once again—the first fall being in The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 (GFC)—stumbling financially in the current COVID-related economic upheaval (GFC 2). In a recent TD Ameritrade survey, 39% of the youngest Millennials, those 24-29 years old, reported moving…
The American middle class is shrinking in comparison to nations around the world. Yesterday, I proffered the view that those Americans wishing to sustain or aspiring to achieve a middle class standard of living may not be obtaining the academic preparation necessary, especially as indicated by their average performance on international educational assessments. Yet, their…
Like I posited a few days ago, “Why is the American middle class shrinking?” Firstly, it can be argued that personal success, whether economic or humanistic, requires the acquisition of knowledge and the application of such knowledge. However, rote memorization and regurgitation on cue, skills necessary to compete in the modern American academic meritocracy, yet…
The American middle class is shrinking. Why?
