At High School In His Michigan Hometown, New Harvard President Makes The Case For College

Harvard University’s new President Larry Bacow made the case for college at a public exam high school in Pontiac, Mich., his hometown.

It was Bacow’s first major trip as president of the wealthiest university on the planet. Pontiac, just north of Detroit, sits about 700 miles from Harvard Yard, although that distance sometimes feels much farther.

Standing in front of the school’s purple, winged phoenix logo inside a packed auditorium, Bacow’s message to students last week was simple: Go to college.

“Higher education can create pathways for you that are unimaginable today,” Bacow said. “When I was siting where you’re sitting, the last thing I ever could have imagined was that I would wind up being a college professor.”

Nearly all of the students at Pontiac's International Technological Academy come from low-income families. Half are Hispanic, more than a third African-American, and about 60 percent will go on to college.

The son of Jewish refugees, Bacow said he can relate. His father parked cars to work his way through Wayne State University in Detroit.

The MIT trained economist said Pontiac was always a blue collar town. “Growing up, there were three GM assembly plants in Pontiac,” he recalled.

Since then, those plants have shuttered, wages have stagnated, and many in the city of 60,000 feel left behind.

“When I graduated from high school, you could go to work for GM the next day and be guaranteed a comfortable middle-class existence,” Bacow said. “That does not exist anymore. The only way kids are going to get ahead is if they get an education.”

Despite soaring tuition and student debt, 68 percent of 1,000 Americans WGBH News surveyed in August said college is worth attending, but when asked if attending college is necessary to get ahead, 55 percent said it is not.

“Interestingly, a majority of both grads and non-grads feel that college is not necessary to get ahead in life,” said Seth Brohinsky, a project director with Abt Associates, which conducted the poll.

Brohinsky pointed to generational gaps: Just 6 in 10 younger Americans feel college is worth attending, and only about one third feel that way strongly.

"If you look at some of the older-aged groups, a majority feel college is worth it, and they say so strongly,” he said.

Brohinsky said this finding reflects a financial reality for younger Americans: Total student debt surpassed $1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2018.

“This is a value question between costs and benefits, and you can see younger Americans are really feeling the crunch of the cost of college,” Brohinsky added.

In Pontiac, when Bacow told students the sticker price at Harvard was “not cheap” and “north of $50,000 a year,” some students gasped, others giggled. Bacow quickly reassured them that schools like Harvard offer generous financial aid.

"If your family makes less than $65,000 — total family income — your family pays nothing," Bacow said, prompting many students to clap their hands.

With the median family income in Pontiac hovering around just $30,000 a year, many students said college is not worth it and not necessary.

After listening to Bacow, Rebecca Murray, a junior who is 16, said it was inspiring to meet the president of Harvard, even though she knows the odds of getting accepted to the Ivy League school are slim.

“It’s really good to see someone who came from a similar situation to me make it so far in life,” Murray said.

Considering the cost of college, Murray said it would be worth it as long as she receives a scholarship.

“I’m not going to purposefully put myself in debt because I can’t afford that,” Murray said. “I think in today’s world you do need to go to college because you can’t get a good job without a degree.”

That is a message Bacow has said he plans to preach in his new role.

“The difference in lifetime earnings between college and high school graduates has never been greater,” Bacow said. “If you want to get ahead, you’re going to have to increasingly invest in your own human capital and that’s what higher education does.”

Bacow promised to return to his hometown — and his Midwestern roots — often.

Our higher education reports are a collaboration with The Forum for the Future of Higher Education and made possible with support from Lumina Foundation and the Davis Educational Foundation.