Amber
Martin
Kai
Joey

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

One of his premises is that some of the students are there to go further on their work environment. They are going to night school because they have day jobs. Municipal employers require college level certification to advance in the work force. He talks about teaching young men who have to acquire a certain number of credits before they can get a job, such as police officers. He implies that students go to college not because they feel the need to get a higher education, but simply because they want to be able to get jobs that require a certain amount of college education. Some students go back to school to get better jobs but they only work to do well because they wanted to get their tuition reimbursed. Also, some people only go back to school to better themselves and to prove to themselves that they can actually do it. But as it turns out some people go back and fail. He gives an example of how he graded Ms. L. He states, “I thought of slipping her the old gentle women’s C-minus, but I couldn’t do it. I would be eroding the standards of the school for which I worked.” Also, he assumes that most of his students are only going back to college simply because they want to be able to feel secure for the future. The students don’t want to be financially insecure, thus they feel going back to school and getting a diploma will act as a safety net for them in the future. In a nut shell, he believes his students go to school for economical reasons.