Education vs Wealth: Which Matters Most? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Education can be defined in very many ways depending on the viewpoint of the person describing it. In simple terms, education is the process of both acquiring and sharing informational knowledge, ideas, and skills. At the same time, wealth can be defined as the possession of a high income as well as other riches. It is crucial to note that education not only linked to attending a formal school, lectures, or being awarded a certificate in a particular field. In this paper, emphasis will be on the analysis of the relationship between wealth and education and how children born in the stable financial family enjoy more of the benefits offered by the school. Like other forms of investments, culture can be referred to as an investment in human capital, which individuals hope to get a higher return in the future. The relationship between family status and academic excellence has always been a significant hindrance to education inequality. Several studies ha, therefore, reveal that a family's socio-economical background has a direct correlation to a student t's learning ability.

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Children whose parents hold higher education levels and prestigious jobs tend to do much better in education systems. Therefore, the economic status of the parents and the ability of a child to excel is well established. Similarly, poverty and social-economical background produce adverse negative outcomes like low IQ and difficulty in educational excellence on children born in such situations. Therefore from this view, the most critical determinant of a child's parental education, since the higher the parental education, the more possibility of a child to enjoy his/her parent's benefits. In this paper, emphasis will be on the wealth of children in education sectors. The main idea behind this is to question the current system used, which only favors the rich kids. Therefore, the focus is mainly on education systems that encourage inequality.

Benefits Enjoyed by Children From Wealthy Families Over Poor Families

Practically, it is asserted that the many factors why rich kids perform better in schools are because poor kids encounter challenging life experiences outside school. However, the unseen reality is that the less fortunate kids are provided with an education that is substandard and inferior as opposed to the rich kids. Kids from well off families enjoy various education benefits from their counterparts. Educators are blamed for promoting this trend of inequality by devising a less complicated and less engaged education system for children who presumably cannot adapt to a rigorous regime. Also, "Rich students utilize project-based methods that are practically engaging."(Gleeson, 2019). Despite the realization of these differences, less effort is made to eliminate the dependence of education on wealth.

Wealthy parents are known to invest more of money in their children, while low-earning families who are most of being single parents are usually forced to stretch their resources. This has been observable true since more successful parents strive to ensure their children acquire a college education, which has caused a disparity in the economic status.

Schools inhibited by poor students are affected by small classroom size, fewer teacher's salaries, and the education systems they are provided. These children are given a choice of attending the failing institutions, i.e., the public schools. However, most parents want their children to participate in excellent schools since they believe in the notion that if their children work hard, they may inevitably become successful adults in the future, hence, propelling their social level to middle classes. Their parents know these Private schools provide a rigorous choice to local schools.

However, various critics have shown that the nature of private schools does not provide superiority in lifting all these children to one level. Despite this, the government has remained focused on trying to close the gap because they believe good education equips children with the necessary skills that enable them to become successful in the future. The trend indifference in school is not solely tied to the financial crisis of parents alone but also to the value put on education and the amount of time put on it. For instance, "scholars in South Korea attend school for 220 days annually as compared to 180 days in those in Quebec in Canada. Also, in Canada, children in the age of 7 to 14 stay in school for average hours of about 7363 hours in schools as compared to 6710 hours in countries in the Organization for Economic Operation and developed countries."(Statistics Canada, 2012).

Many colleges in the USA have started methods to attract students from low-income families. However, these institutions remain as magnets attracting students from wealthy backgrounds. It is evident that student with a legacy status is likely to be approved to join the highly ranked education centers since admission was more linked to family ties than details of their academic profiles. "In the 1930s, most scholars who applied to be admitted in both Yale and Havard, and in other prestigious centers for higher learning like Columbia, Princeton, and Dartmouth were given opportunities in this institution because people from middle and lower-level people never bothered on applying, as they viewed this as a waste of time. Therefore the history of admission has been about merit and privilege" (Ornstein, 2019). Admission favors those who are capable of affording the expenses the schools offer to avoid financial aid burdens.

For instance, Salisbury school an all private boy's school that provides competent education to students in all fields, especially in science and innovation. The school also offers vibrant artistic, sporting, and extracurricular programs that strengthen the character of the students as compared to substandard schools attended by the less fortunate. Since Salisbury solely fashioned for boys, it advocates fostering the confidence of its students, enabling them to challenge each other in-class activities. Also, they offer both sportings at a more competitive and recreational ground as well as numerous programs that mentor them into becomes good leaders and citizens.

The design of the school's structure studied above is relatively hard to beat. It was impossible to accept that various from institutions receiving a much lower quality education compete with this same school in acquiring college chances and preparation for the job market. Therefore, this kind of advantage puts all graduates from this institution on top of the job market. This education barrier can, accordingly, act as a limiting factor preventing such students from attaining or realizing their maximum capabilities. It was crucial to remember that most of the funds used in this public institution come from the government. Hence, a poor country may fail to provide sufficient funds needed to strengthen the quality of education. In addition, public schools in a majority of states receive operation funding from external funding programs like UNESCO, in contrary to the private institutions, which are mainly funded by rich parents and wealthy stakeholders.

According to Connell, low income is usually viewed as poverty despite the fact that income varies in character and amount, since some other intermittent or paid (1994). The author, therefore, emphasizes that compensatory education initiatives were created to neutralize historical situations, which were the failures of the education system after the end of the war. Critical sociology states that public schools are not responsible for reducing social inequality; rather, the educational system infringes the social problems like gender, ethnicity, and race.

How Wealthy Children Are Taught Differently Than Poor Children

Apart from the economic advantages, wealthy children are raised and taught in a different way than those raised in poverty. Researches have shown that children are brought up differently according to the family's wealth. Well established families are guided by calendars since their children are enrolled in activities like ballet, soccer, and home activities depending on time and season. In these families, there are usually two active parents involved in taking care of the children, for instance, by reading to them storybooks and tales to reduce their anxiety levels. However, in poor families, children tend to spend time alone without their parents. This class disparity in bringing up children causes greater future consequences in the life of these children since it puts them on different paths predicting the socio-economic divisions on the income scale, which is usually linked to educational attainment.

A child's experience is very consequential in evaluating a child's future social. Emotional and cognitive development, therefore, even if parents of poor children cannot manage to cater completely for the needs of their children, they should at least strive to provide them moral and emotional support. Education is in today's world more cherished in the skillful world that awaits the students. Many colleges, for instance, have evolved into becoming a preconditioning determinant of upward social mobility. Therefore the gap income gap between those with a degree and those without one is enormous. But the nature of educational achievement is still high on the elite community. This is because the children of parents who achieved college education are more likely to proceed to college with relatively high grades are compared to those whose parents are high school dropouts. A limited number of scholars whose parents reached high school tend to move to college.

Before the children from a lower socio-economic of parents begin kindergarten, their counterparts are usually a few years before them in knowledge in both reading and mathematics. Even if these children from impoverished backgrounds emerge as smart kids in their early days of learning are usually left behind over their course of schooling become some of them are born to a teenage mother who later experiences difficulties in keeping the school without living above their means. Another factor is that these children tend to suffer a high obesity rate, social and emotional problems, especially from low-self-esteem, and are poor health. And become their parents lack enough income; they may be deprived of the benefits like extra lesions, tutorial services, and school equipment.

Parenting is a key determinant who the child will become in the future; therefore, dramatic alteration of the family structure like divorces and conceiving children out of marriage has been an increasing trend, especially among women who attained less education than educated women. Maternal education and the structure of the family combine to narrow the gaps between socioeconomic gaps between the rich and the poor. When women become educated, they are likely to have a higher chance of being absorbed into the labor setting; occupational prestige, and they get advantages many advantages in the marriage market. On the contrary, women with less education lack the acquisition of both human and financial resources that educated women enjoy. Therefore parenting is a greater barrier for women in less stable families due to a shortage of time, support, and motivation from significant other. "Women who attain a higher education overcome many barriers that may limit them from realizing their full potential as parents, hence maintaining a relatively higher degree of parenting" (Augustine, 2014). In short, stable family settings act as a good framework in eliminating the possibility of the occurrence of negative forces that may inhibit th...