I couldn't think of success without thinking of the people that defy the current educational system and thrived in their fields like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. They're both drop out but are currently earning more than any other MPA holders do. :)

Jonha

Not everybody can be a scientist or an engineer. Just like not everybody can be a dentist or a doctor.

The core issue here is one of human dignity, moral values and ethics.

There were plenty of "smart guys" in the maths and sciences who were rewarded with success and prestige; but they were not decent human beings. Quite the contrary. Does Josef Mengele ring a bell? How about the purveyors of the American eugenics movement? Shall I continue?

Of course, understanding and recognizing patterns of destructive classism requires some rudimentary mathematical knowledge and a score of history lesson mastery.

Yours Truly,
A not-so-dumb dyslexic

Do you realize that if you're poor, and the only lawyer you have access to is a legal aid lawyer, you don't even have the right to sue when you are egregiously wronged? I blame this on the fact that law school's over-inflated tuition price-tag makes it impossible for anyone to enter law with the intent on bringing justice to those who otherwise have none.

I always wanted to be a lawyer, because I grew up admiring heroes like Clarence Darrow. In fact, I wanted to be a human rights lawyer. It is not the highest paying area of law to get into, but that is what I wanted to do…because I know what it is to be denied justice because of pervasive classism in a rich white male society where poor women are disposable.

I am 42 years old and I came from America's underclass (never knew my father, mother abandoned me, etc.). I am the first and only member of my family to have even gotten an undergrad degree (which failed to be the ticket out of grueling poverty that everybody else claimed).

I was on my own with no support and no help at the age of 13. I didn't have any opportunities. I didn't get to live the American Dream; I got to live the American Nightmare.

I never knew anyone in my life, or in my neighborhood, growing up that had been successful in school, or in the labor market. The only exception were school teachers who were all mostly from the middle class — and who looked down on the poor ghetto kids and treated us like crap. (I wrote about this in my first book, "Classism For Dimwits")

Everybody else I knew worked hard, but they still couldn't afford basic human needs (like health and dental care, all your basic utilities, reliable transportation, etc.).

I did not get to go to college until I was in my late 20's after three years of physical therapy from a disabling car accident that took me out of my blue-collar job at age 24. I had to take out student loans to do it. As a very low income non-traditional aged student, I did not have the same privileges, advantages and all sorts of other things that middle class non-disabled kids right out of high school (the traditional aged college students) take for granted as "normal."

I also had to spend a few years taking remedial classes at a community college because I have a learning disability (I am dyslexic) and therefore lacked a high school college prep background.

It took ALL my time outside of classes to study and absorb the material because of having a learning disability. I endured ridicule and abuse from snotty rude kids and elitist professors who, from their lofty position as self-appointed "gatekeepers", felt that older learners — especially those of us struggling with poverty AND a learning disability — didn't have a right to be in college.

I FINALLY was able to graduate in 2001 at the age of 34, in spite of all the obstacles in my path. My degree was in mathematics. But, owing to having to take all those remedial level classes before being "college-ready" before getting to take college level courses, I ran out of allowable Pell grants before I was able to graduate. There certainly was no money for me to go to law school/

So there I was, a middle-aged woman with dyslexia, "poor white trash" from a Philly ghetto, with a bachelors degree…that I could wipe my ass with since the job market was not welcoming middle-aged women from the bottom socio-economic rung in their early to mid thirties trying to re-enter the job market with no more professional experience in a degree-required job than the twenty-somethings from the middle and upper classes.

One of the few professors I had who was NOT a jerk coaxed me into considering law school because of my penchant for pursuing social justice, because I knew firsthand what it meant to have justice denied. I seriously looked into it because I wanted to be a lawyer because of all the human rights violations going on against the very poor (most whom are women), and against Native Americans.

As a woman with a disability, and an older lady at that, plus coming from extreme poverty, I was not convinced that I'd have a real fair chance of making it in an environment that is set up rigidly along class lines that is really biased against those who are not middle or upper class. My not-so-pleasant experience with classism as an undergrad did not help matters.

I had always wanted to be a lawyer — a human rights lawyer. But I never knew any lawyers personally, and I did not have a middle class social network; so for me, just getting to graduate from a state college with a four year degree was a huge thing. But the professor who encouraged me to go on to law school felt I was smart enough to make it, dyslexia or no dyslexia. I checked out a book to prepare for the LSAT. This LSAT exam didn't seem too bad. But the what ended up being the deciding factor was the tuition price-tag.

Coming from a position of having no recent job or work experience, no money, no family, no social support, no nothing, there was NO way I could go to law school and become that next Gareth Pierce, Robert A. Williams, Fay Clayton, or Clarence Darrow. The $130,000 tuition price tag might as well be a million dollars for someone like me.

Most aspiring lawyers just want to get rich, have a fancy house and clothes and the BMW, working for some Martindale Hubbell firm doing corporate law, making a comfortable living helping corporate America to get away with cheating the poor little guy. Nobody cares about what is right, or about "justice for all." And therein lies the problem. The poor are the ONE group of people (especially poor WOMEN) whom it is acceptable to deny justice.

Make no mistake about it, there is no "justice for all" when you're from the underclass, especially if you're a disabled woman; you don't get any justice.

You can't even sue unless you're suing an OB/GYN for being doped up on cocaine while inserting the forceps backwards (well, you get the idea) while delivering your baby, injuring you and the baby in the process and leaving your progeny as deformed as the Elephant Man. In other words, your case has to be a slam dunk before a lawyer working on contingency fee basis will even look at you, let alone take your case.

The right to sue or seek legal remedy is really a social class privilege that is not available to all of this nation's citizens. And of those contingency-fee lawyers, most will sell you out on the turn of a dime. Nobody cares about this country's less fortunate who drew a blank in life's lottery.

But given the chance and the opportunity before I got too old, I would have LOVED to have been able to go to law school so I could be a voice and a source of justice for those who otherwise have none. To me, getting to become a lawyer if I would have had the chance meant:

1. Going after multinational corporations for egregious human rights violations (Doe v. Unocal)

2. Taking on the Vatican for hiding Croatian Ustase war criminals from the 1990's Balkans war; plus the Vatican's promoting of human rights violations against women in Latin and Central American countries where abortion is criminalized, even to save the mother's life, because those countries' governments and laws are 100% Catholic and premised upon the Roman legal system of corpus juris — in conflict with Article 7(g) of the Rome Statute.

3. Representing Native American rape victims who are denied justice because of inherently racist US federal Indian laws premised on a racist US Supreme Court case ruling in 1823 (Johnson v. McIntosh) — yeah, fighting to overturn Johnson v. McIntosh and Oliphant v. Suquamish would be the best thing since Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and the notion of "separate but equal." Being a lawyer would empower and emprivilege me to do just that — and bring some long overdue justice to Native Americans who are still treated as "less than."

4. Going after utility monopolies who have placed executive and shareholder profit above the lives of the very poor (children, the disabled, and the elderly), who paid for their poverty with their lives in winter heating crisis related deaths.

5. Going after lawless vulture capitalists who use slave labor in the Marianas to make clothing deceptively labeled as "Made in the USA."

Having the fancy house and the BMW didn't matter to me. Having the opportunity to work in a career that would allow me to support myself with some dignity and where I'd be in a position of power to actually make a damn difference meant EVERYTHING to me.

That is not something I can do as an economically disadvantaged 42 year old woman eking out a subsistence on food stamps, no health care, and no income except for $30/mo in book royalties as a self-published author ( a real "starving writer") lacking any real job opportunities owing to age discrimination and a very real — not imagined — lack of unearned privilege.

Would anyone recommend taking grad school classes online from an accredited university while also keeping your current job?

I have wanted to get my masters ever since I attained my undergraduate degree.

The manager's boss told me that, with my experience, and with my skills, if I had only had an MFA, I could land the job as manager and, have a wonderful high paying career for the rest of my life.

I have seen numerous occasions like this where someone's potential career path is lethally hindered by not having a degree.

Meanwhile, I was offered a simple teaching position, related to my job. I am qualified for this position because I have extensive experience. However, If I did not have my BA, I would not be allowed to apply.

get the picture?