I know the transformative power of higher education.
And I recall the excitement years ago of standing at the intersection where I knew I was going to catch my ride to a better and different future because of the chance to learn. Let me sum up my long story for you by saying my grandfather Quinn had a 3rd grade education. My father finished high school. We came from an extended family of mostly farmers, carpenters, administrative assistants and mill workers.
My siblings and I were first-gen college students. All three generations found success according to the tools we were given, but my brother, two sisters and I had and still have more choices, more prosperity than the generations before us, thanks to the tools we picked up at college. My brother owns two small businesses in Florida that employ dozens, my older sister runs her specialty home painting business in Charlotte. My “baby” sister is a pharmacist in South Carolina, and as for me, well, I guess you know what field I chose if you are reading this.
The metro Atlanta high schools that called students back this month hold the 2015-16 class of seniors who will be making choices about where they are headed — jobs, the military or colleges and universities. And last year’s high school graduates who have chosen college are packing now to head off on the first steps of discovering the transformative power of education that they get a chance to plug into.
It changes the stories of their lives, and there is a bigger story that also will play out downstream for every Georgian. Add the colleges and schools to those children and young adults you see with books in hand, and you get the future quality of your neighborhoods, the chance to keep family nearby because they can find good jobs, and the ability to afford and attract everything from roads to restaurants to local leadership.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and I recognize the importance of covering and explaining the small and big stories of education in our communities and lives. And we try to let you know what is going on — from elementary classrooms to college presidential suites, from courtrooms to the governor’s office where budgets for educating students from Rabun County to Georgia Tech are set.
We want to bring you that news because Georgia cannot afford to not afford giving its students, and even second-chance adults, the educational tools they need to build or rebuild their lives here. Our collective future rides in the classroom.
This week, for those young people and families who are about to start making those next-step decisions, the AJC wrote and put together a special digital-only section for our subscribers. The "Back to Campus Extra," in today's AJCePaper, has items such as advice from experts on getting into the college of your choice, how to clean up your online profile and how to pick a major, and a list of 21 things every high school senior ought to do.
We've also collected some of our best writing from the year, such as showing how the cost of college has risen in Georgia, changes in regulations and special programs for veterans. We created an online graphic that lets you play around with the numbers to find out your job prospects in coming years, your chances of being unemployed by level of education, and how many hours weekly you would have to work to pay for your college, from 1963 onward.
You probably won’t be surprised to know that a working Joe could work less than full time in 1963 at minimum wage and pay for his degree. That’s certainly not true for today’s students, putting them at a great disadvantage to their grandparents.
That special section is free with your subscription. It is one of many digital sections the AJC brings you at no extra cost. You just need to bring it up online by going to myajc.com, click on the three white bars in the upper left-hand corner, and select "epaper" from the drop-down menu, then scroll through it to the section. Or you can read it on your pad or phone by signing up for the digital edition.
Next month, AJC education writers plan to connect more of the dots between education and prosperity, or lack of it. We will write the next reports in our Atlanta Forward series, a year-long look at the state of the regional economy. Reporters Janel Davis and Eric Stirgus will analyze how our education system stacks up to our competitors. We'll look at who is doing it well, and what Georgia is doing or not doing to stay in the race to the future. And we will continue pushing foward from there, keeping an eye on the Governor's Education Reform Committee, the Gold Dome and local school systems for the 2015-16 school year.
If you have ideas about what ought to be reported, or if you want to tell us what is important to you as a student or to your children, please feel free to contact me at cquinn@ajc.com, or one of the reporters covering the local school systems. Thanks for reading.
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