Brookings Institute: Scranton Uneducated
Tom Borthwick | July 20, 2010 | 11:39 am
Scranton is one of least educated cities in America. Awesome. We are ranked 90th out of 100 by the Brookings Institute. They simply took a look at how many people have college degrees. This is depressing.
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Well, from a voting and political standpoint I couldn’t agree more as people of this city and surrounding areas for that matter have a tendency to re-elect the same people over and over and over again and then have big expectations for change.
Blind faith in anything…be it an institution or politician…is a sign of ignorance in my opinion. By that definition, I’d have to agree with the Chris L.
This is an area where you were taught to kiss the Bishop’s ring and always vote for Joe McDade (or Dan Flood). It’s an area where it’s considered in bad taste to support an institution like the University of Scranton (thanks Mrs Evans). It’s an area where the best jobs were to be had at “Da Depot” or the Post Office. It’s an area where court appointed defense attorneys (and a District Attorney) sat by while judges based juvenile sentences on the number of birds sitting on a perch.
Bad? You bet. But maybe we just need to hit rock bottom before we can make real progress, one voice at a time.
The statistic is that 80% of students in Lackawanna County head to college. Of those,about at least 35% don’t make it through their first semester of freshman year. And some people with 4 year and graduate degrees are not working in their field anyway.
If the only measure of education is an advanced degree, then we are missing the point completely. An alternative education/career path could be high school and career education, then to a 2 year technical college, then to an advanced degree. More isn’t necesarily better; but a focused and strategic career/education path? That makes much more sense!