Category: education

education

Beginning: Why A College Education Matters

Christa Avampato

Last week every major news outlet in the U.S. ran a story, or several stories, about the just-released Pew Research Center study entitled “Is College Worth It?” The study found that “57% of Americans now believe the value of higher education is not worth the cost.” I first heard about this study in the elevator of my office building, and as I made my way to my desk, my heart sank.

This study could take us in a few different directions:

1.) The cost of a university education, cited by the study as the main barrier for more Americans to attend and graduate from college, could begin to be re-evaluated. Operations and financial directors of U.S. colleges and universities could begin to serious look at cost savings that could make college more affordable. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see a headline that says, “College tuition in the U.S. drops compared to the year before for the first time in our history“? It’s going to take some serious retooling of these institutions to make this headline a reality, and they will have to take a look at every single line item, every single process, and open it up for re-evaluation. It would be an effort worth undertaking.

2.) College becomes a publicly funded venture as it is in countries like Canada and a good deal of Europe. This of course will take a government action that our country fights tooth and nail at every turn: an increase in taxes. Given our current federal environment, I’m not sure if it’s possible for this option to come to life. It would also require a serious re-tooling of our education system as a whole, a subject we have struggled with for decades since. I’d love to see a renegade state take on this experiment the way that Massachusetts ran its experiment of providing healthcare to all residents.

3.) Potential college students will throw up their hands at the high cost of college and not apply. This is the possibility that really pains me. I’d rather pay more taxes now than face a future with fewer American college graduates. We are already woefully behind many other countries in the world in critical fields like engineering, science, and math. What we need is for more Americans to attend college, not less, if we are to continue to compete on the world stage. This needs to be our focus in our debate, and to make it happen we need to consider every possible option to reach this goal.

As this debate continues, and I’m sure it will be a part of our news for years to come, my plea to young high school graduates is this: you cannot let the high price of college get in the way of your future. Easy for me to say, right? How would I know what problems your families face? How would I, a very well-educated professional, know how tough it is for you? And my answer to that is, trust me, I know plenty about how difficult it is to fund a college education because I funded my own, and you should do it any way you can.

Here’s why: My mother provided for a family of five with multiple jobs making far less in her annual salary than it cost for a single year’s tuition at Penn, where I went for my undergraduate degree. I was on my own to fund college any way I possibly could, and though Penn was a very difficult road for me and I thought about giving up so many times that I just stopped counting, I’m so grateful that I hung in there. I always worked at least two jobs in school, and filled out every possible form for every scrap of money I could possibly earn or be granted or loaned. I went without a lot; I certainly had many moments of embarrassment at my financial situation that I could do nothing about. It was humbling to say the least. I had to take the very, very long-view on why all this hard work and struggle was worth it. And I did the math. Over the long-run, a college education would pay off in increased income. It would be a slow rise, but it would happen if I just kept working as hard as I possibly could. So I did, and it worked out. It took so much effort, though I’ve never regretted that choice. Not for one single moment.

As if that debt wasn’t enough, I also put myself through graduate school at the Darden School at UVA, too, and continue to be grateful for that investment as well. And it was a very large investment. It was what most Americans pay for a mortgage. Again, I did the math and worked as hard as I could. It worked out. It continues to work out.

Funding your own college education carries plenty of compromises, challenges, and frustrations. And so does everything else that’s worthwhile. Go to college.

education, election, politics

Beginning: Shifting Our National Priorities in Favor of Children

Christa Avampato

I saw a sign in a store that read, “I can’t wait for the day when we have an education budget that can’t be cut and have to hold a bake sale to fund our weapons program.”

As the landscape of the 2012 Presidential Race starts to take shape, I’ve been thinking a lot about our society’s priorities and how backward so many of them seem. This sign popped up in my life as if to encourage this train of thought. Why is funding for education so susceptible to cuts while re-engineering our defense budget is always off the table? Too many kids have too few options. In several neighborhoods only blocks from where I live, kids have two choices of how they spend their time: the classroom or the streets.

Why do we have such a hard time taking the long view? Why can’t we see that healthcare and a good education are the fundamental building blocks for every productive member of society?

Why are social services seen as expendable when they are literally a matter of life and death for far too many Americans? Does that mean we’re saying those people are expendable, too?

Why does the personal wealth of a candidate have more to do with the viability of their campaign than their ability to empathic and charismatic?

And why is it that we have a possible candidate in the running who says on national television, “let other nations fend for themselves”?

If we want our country and our world to change, we need to change our own communities first and that will require shifting our priorities. The focus has to be on what we do for our children. We have to have their best interests in mind if we hope to have a country and a world we’re proud of.

business, education, leadership, nonprofit

Beginning: Cathie Black, Donald Trump, and the Difficulty of Building Consensus

Christa Avampato

On the New York Times blog Room for Debate several experts batted around Cathie Black’s quick appointment and quick dismissal as the Chancellor of New York City public schools. Most of them recapped what I thought were less-than-insightful points-of-view. One response, by the Cato Institute’s Neal P. McCluskey, brought up a very intriguing idea that I’ve been unable to get out of my mind for the last 5 days since I read his article. “In business, you don’t need public consensus to get things done. In something run by democratic government, you do.”

Cathie Black’s short tenure
Cathie Black was an abundantly successful giant in the publishing industry. She’s smart, savvy, and courageous. Taking the position as the NYC Public Schools Chancellor took a tremendous amount of guts. I don’t think she was fully-prepared for the complexities of the job. And while I was disappointed and shocked by some of her very public and distasteful mishaps (i.e., joking that birth control could help the overcrowding problems in schools), I was also sorry that she seemed to get very little guidance from former Chancellors. After a number of years working in the corporate world and after spending an equal number of years in the nonprofit world (some of that time in a government role), I whole-heartedly support Mr McCluskey’s opinion that making it in business is far easier than making it in the nonprofit / public sectors because of the consensus factor. The difference is public scrutiny and approval. I would go so far as to say that if you name any of today’s Fortune 500 CEO as the Chancellor of NYC Public Schools, they would likely follow in Black’s footsteps.

I’ve never bought into this idea that a good business person would naturally be a good fit as the head of a public organization. Business experience and the skills that come along with it, are not the be all end all of leadership. If anything, they’re only one small piece of the leadership pie. A leader also needs charisma, ethics, public speaking ability, creative acumen, and passion for the cause. Most importantly they need to have empathy and compassion for the people working alongside them. It’s entirely possible to cross the chasm, and the skills of business and nonprofit management can certainly support one another. That has absolutely been the case in my career. It just isn’t a given, which brings me to my latest political heartache – the potential candidacy of Donald Trump for President of the United States. Heaven help us – he may be the only Republican candidate who I fear more than Sarah Palin.

The Donald
On the Today Show last week, Meredith Viera asked The Donald why he thought he was qualified to be President. The first words out of his mouth? “Well, I hate to even say this, Meredith, but I did build the #1 rated show on NBC.” Given NBC’s recent track record of shows, I wouldn’t consider this a difficult feat. (That’s changed a bit in the past few years with the brilliant 30 Rock, and others like Parks & Recreation. For a while, The Office seemed to be their only saving grace.) The Donald’s second comment was that he’s an excellent businessman and therefore qualified to run the United States. And he topped it all off with his now-infamous rant about how President Obama is not a real U.S. citizen. I started having flashbacks to the ignorant dark ages of GWB. I have two words for you, Donald – “Cathie Black”.

What business people can learn from the public sector
For too long, business skills have been considered the silver bullet. “If you can run a corporation, you can do anything.” Bologna. As a business person myself, I think that view is elitist and short-sighted. We have to stop thinking of the public sector as the second sector. It’s much more complex than business, more difficult to lead, and to be honest, has much further-reaching, long-lasting effects on our society. The Chancellor of NYC public schools is responsible for educating the future adults of New York City. The President of the United States is the leader of the free world as it stands today. Think about that for a moment. These are incredibly awesome scales of responsibility, and need to be treated with the reverence that they deserve. Consensus, my dear business colleagues, is a much more lofty and difficult goal than driving stock prices and the bottom line. Approach these types of jobs with humility – we are beginners in this space. We have a lot to learn.

determination, education, loans, money

Beginning: How I Got My Financial Life on Track and Paid Off My Private Student Loans

Christa Avampato

In May 2007, I graduated from Darden Business School and moved to New York City. I didn’t have a firm job offer and I had run out of money. In June, I got a full-time job offer and to tide myself over until I got my first paycheck in July I had to take a cash advance on my American Express card at an ATM and only making the minimum credit card payment that month. This was incredibly upsetting to me because I have always prided myself on never carrying any credit card debt. Though I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, I felt that financially I had hit rock bottom. I remember standing at that ATM machine in Astoria, Queens, where I was subletting an apartment month-to-month from a friend. I must have stood there for 20 minutes before making the cash withdrawal. I felt afraid, alone, and very, very broke.

Pulling myself together
I had gotten some gift certificate money on Amazon.com and with it bought Suze Orman’s just-published book Young, Fabulous, and Broke. I tore through it in an effort to put together a plan of how to get myself back on track. In addition to having run out of money, I also had over $100,000 of school loans hanging over me. It felt like a crushing amount of debt. It was a crushing amount of debt, particularly for someone starting at $0. To make matters worse, the interest on the loans was not tax-deductible because my income was too high – no consideration for debt-to-income ratio is given by the IRS with regards to this tax rule. That rule motivated me to get rid of these loans as quickly as possible. I didn’t regret my education, though I definitely felt like I would be in debt for many years to come and have to delay a lot of my dreams, which were precisely the reasons I went to graduate school in the first place.

After a mini-breakdown at the ATM, I pulled myself together, talked to some friends about this situation, and eventually toughened up. To be honest, I made the choice to go to school, take these loans, move to New York City, and try to make a go of a career as a product developer. I had to take responsibility for this debt; I had to own it and get it paid down as fast as I could without missing out on the fun of life in the meantime. A delicate balance. I was on the road, and I just had to chin up and keep going. Feeling sorry for myself just made the situation worse so I stopped whining, poured my heart into a solid plan to put away an emergency fund (which turned out to be very important considering that the recession would hit full force 6 months later), pay down my loans, and still enjoy all of the amazing experience that New York City has to offer. That last piece was key – if I couldn’t find a way to enjoy NYC while managing my finances, what would be the point in living here?

A plan is formed
With help from Suze’s book and my own experience of never really having much money to begin with, I put a plan in place. I had a goal amount to save every month that would first be put away for my emergency fund (the amount it would take me to live for 12 months if I lose my job.) I would make the minimum payments on my school loans until my emergency fund was in place, and then use the monthly savings amount to pay down the loans. Little by little I squirreled away money while still enjoying New York City in an affordable way. I’ve never been a shopper or much of a collector so resisting the endless temptations in New York City to buy-buy-buy was easy for me – and it was key to paying down my debt. My personal yoga practice helped A LOT, as did running, taking long walks in the park, and seeing my friends as often as possible. I had a lot of anxiety about the loans and when I felt it overwhelming me, I would get out into the world to shake it off.

A huge goal realized in 3 and a half years
Friday, February 11th, was a big, beautiful day. A little over three and a half years since putting my plan into action, I paid off over half of my student loans – the entirety of the private loans I took to go to graduate school. I still have government loans from both my undergraduate (which I also paid for myself) and graduate studies, though they have a locked interest rate. I will be turning my attention toward them next, though for today I’m doing a little jig of celebration. I threw off a great big heavy chain of debt today and it feels amazing!

My book about yoga and personal finance
I’m using this experience as a basis for a book I’m working on that combines the principles of yoga and solid guidelines for developing your own personal financial plan. I want this story of debt relief to be useful to as many people as possible, and the best way to make that happen is to tell the story.

Have you accomplished a big fat goal recently or have you put a plan in place to pay down your debt despite the tough economy? Let me know your story!

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

care, courage, dreams, education, inspiration, integrity, story

Further Thoughts on MLK Day

Christa Avampato

This post is available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~ MLK via CharlesMBlow

Charles M. Blow is The New York Times’s visual Op-Ed columnist. His column appears every Saturday.

“Dr. King delivered the “I have a dream” speech at age 34 and lived only 39 years.” ~ via Drew Allen

I read these two tweets on Monday morning with so much gratitude and then so much awe for the person Dr. King was and the person that he asked all of us to be. He was the age I am now when he delivered the I Have a Dream speech and his life was cut far too short only 5 years later. Those two pieces of information weigh heavy on my heart, particularly when I consider how far we still have to go to create a more peaceful society where everyone, regardless of race, creed, gender, personal economics, or upbringing, can advance through hard work and determination.

Coincidentally I am now reading Condoleezza Rice’s book, Extraordinary, Ordinary People, which reminds me of how much hope we have in our society. While I don’t agree with her politics, the inspiration of her story can’t be denied. She grew up in pre-Civil Rights Birmingham and rose to be one of the most influential people in the world because of her hard-won education. She has a quote in the book that hit me like a ton of bricks because of the courage and passion it coveys. She says of her parents, “Somehow they raised their little girl in Jim Crow Birmingham to believe that even if she couldn’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, she could be President of the United States.”

I understand her fervent belief in education. I grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money but believed in education. I studied hard, worked hard, and pushed myself, sometimes far beyond my limits, because even at an early age I knew that my education would improve the quality of my life in the long run. That bet, that long, sometimes-difficult-to-believe-in bet, paid off. My education, and the will it took to get it, are two things that I am incredibly grateful for every day. I live a really good life as a result of my education. I like to share that story, particularly with children, through my volunteer work. It gives them some hope to meet a real life person who understands where they are and where they can get to by working hard.

In the spirit of Dr. King, we need to share our stories through every channel we’ve got. We must continue to talk about what’s important to us and what matters. And we must do so without ever really knowing how or when or why it will affect someone else. Martin Luther King Day reminds us why it is so important to speak our minds and then live accordingly – because it makes a difference.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

career, decision-making, discovery, education, encouragement, work

Step 350: It’s Not Knowing that Really Counts

Christa Avampato

“Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.” ~ Sir William Haley, British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator

If Sir Haley were standing in front of me right now, I’d give him a hug. I love him for stating exactly what an education should be about – unending discovery. Rather than people striving to be the smartest person around, what would our world be like if for every answer we found we had two more questions? What if every time we became an expert in one area, we marveled at how many areas we know nothing about?

This quote reminded me of a post I wrote for my friend, Amanda’s, blog about being a beginner. It’s going to be the spring-board for this blog in 2011 – more details to come on this in a not-too-distant post. Life’s more fun as a beginner. We don’t know what we don’t know and therefore we ask lots of questions, we try out ideas, we explore unencumbered by any notion of what’s been done before. Beginners are the best innovators because the word “should” is not part of their thinking. They have no idea what they should do. Sometimes the resource or experience you don’t have is the real blessing.

We may not know what our life’s purpose is. We may not know what’s next for us as we turn our attention toward 2011. We’re just beginning – this is where the fun starts.

The image above can be found here.

education, learning, student, teaching, yoga

Step 286: Teaching to Improve Ourselves and Our Students

Christa Avampato

“Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” ~ Colleen Wilcox

I thought about this quote on Monday night as I wrapped up my second yoga class at Columbia Law School. I was more familiar with the space this time, brought some new music, and recognized some repeat students. Teaching requires improvisation. We explain something a specific way, see if the meaning is registering with the students, and if not, we try something else. No time for judgment. We’ve got to get better with each moment. Teachers constantly seek to improve themselves and their students. It is an act of constant faith in our ability, in the journey, and in one another.

With each yoga class I teach, I find myself walking in and thinking “I want this to be the best class I’ve ever given.” Usually it falls short of my expectations, no matter how much effort I put into it. I always end up jotting down a page of notes that detail things I could have done better. I take that page and plow into the next class, confident that there will always be another page of improvements from that next class. The cycle of continuous improvement never ends in teaching. It is the gift that truly keeps on giving so long as we keep showing up.

education, teaching

Step 278: Teaching and Learning As Two Sides of the Same Coin

Christa Avampato

Last night I taught my first yoga class at Columbia Law School. A new space for me and all new students at a very wide variety of levels. I had prepared a sequence though had to quickly change on the fly to accommodate abilities and experience. A word to the wise: bring more tricks in your bag than you think you will need. Life surprises.

On my way home, I was reminded how much we learn by teaching, yoga or any other subject. We test our true understanding when we’re asked to teach someone else, particularly if that other person has no experience. And while we may take on these roles of “teacher” and “student”, the two are always interchangeable depending upon the lesson being conveyed.

Learning and teaching are both gifts and guides in their own right.

education, teaching

Step 275: Teachable Moments

Christa Avampato

As my week of blogging about education winds down, I debated how to close out this mini-series. Many people have sent me links and story ideas, and in my research I found enough hopeful stories in education to fill this blog for a year. The thought that has stuck with me all day is that learning is everywhere. Every social situation, relationship, job, event, errand, book, movie, person we encounter has something in it that can cause us to make a change, subtle or drastic, temporary or permanent. Teachable moments are everywhere, all the time, provided we can maintain our awareness.

In Buddhism there is a belief that life gives us exactly the teaching we need at the exact moment when we need it. This idea helps us further celebrate the good times and persevere through the difficult moments. There’s an opportunity for all of us to learn at every moment – whether we’re young or old, rich or poor, regardless of our experiences or where we live, work, and spend our time.

If I could give one message to kids everywhere it would be this: every moment there’s a chance to improve our lot and to grow. Sometimes its hard and painful to grow. Sometimes it’s the best feeling in the world. It’s all valuable. It all matters. Just keep going. If we can live this one principle everyday, the journey we take will eventually lead to blessings beyond our wildest dreams.

children, education, school

Step 274: Help Donorschoose.org Seal a $1M Deal to Fund Public Education Programs

Christa Avampato

It’s understandable that some people are skeptical about nonprofit organizations. We work hard for our money and when we give it away, where does it go? There are organizations like Charity Navigator that provide objective ratings of nonprofits, though in this economy ratings agencies of all kinds have drawn criticism. I’ve always found that restricted giving, donations that go to a specific nonprofit program designated by the donor, are a good avenue for people who want more control over where their donations go.

Donorschoose.org takes restricted giving to an even more personal level. With their platform, donors select the specific classrooms and classroom projects they want to fund at public schools all over the country. Fine art in New Orleans, Spanish in Chicago, basic kindergarten skills in Topeka, reading in Anaheim. It’s your money; you decide what initiatives to fund at Donorschoose.org.

Now, we have the chance to help public school children across the U.S. to get the programming and materials they need to succeed. And it won’t cost you a dime – only a few seconds of your time and a couple clicks of your computer. American Express will donate $1M to Donorschoose.org if 100,000 people like you and me pledge to help public education in the one of the following ways by the end of the day today, October 1st:

– Donate school supplies to a local school
– Host a foreign exchange student
– Tutor a struggling student
– Volunteer time at a local library (that’s the one I chose!)
– Help a child learn to read

American Express will then email you to let you know about opportunities to fulfill your pledge to volunteer on behalf of public education. Click here, and let’s help Donorschoose.org make a difference in our communities.