When thinking of the people in my life who did not go to college, either by choice or for financial reasons, I used to perceive their situation as a missed opportunity. After all, college is absolutely essential for not only acquiring academic knowledge, but also learning how to think critically, or so I thought. Through interactions with people outside my immediate social circle, I’ve recently started to question some of these long-standing beliefs. Is a college degree really a prerequisite for intelligence, or is the concept of intelligence too narrowly defined?
Now, I am still incredibly grateful to be in college; the abundance of resources, as well as the freedom to take control over my education and choose which classes I take based on desire for intellectual fulfillment rather than simply acquiring information and skills, I know that being able to sit in a college classroom is a privilege, and not everyone has access to these resources. I also know there is no “right” way to be intelligent, and even those who don’t have the chance to receive a university education are no less capable of intelligence; everyone has something to add to the conversation, regardless of whether they have a degree.
Although getting into college and then getting a degree requires an extraordinary amount of time, dedication and effort, it’s also true that to get accepted in the first place requires at least some degree of privilege. In fact, the strongest contributing factors in whether someone receives an education, and the quality of education they receive, is more dependent on demographic factors such as race and location than on intelligence alone.
“Being poor and not having money and being able to go to a university, you still have the privilege of being able-bodied, over someone who may have hundreds of thousands of dollars but they’re quadriplegic, and it’s hard for them to get into an institution like NC State because we don’t really have accessible housing,” said Arielle Johnson, a graduate student in counselor education, and an intern at the Women’s Center. “There are a lot of things that go into applying into school and being admitted into school that have nothing to do with your aptitude or your ability to learn the material.”
Of course, having privilege itself is not a bad thing. The problem is when we minimize or denigrate others who may not have had the same privileges we’ve had, and the first step in mitigating this is simply to acknowledge that we have privilege, however that could manifest. I personally like to remind myself that I am incredibly fortunate to have this education, and I understand that other intelligent people who work hard and love learning may not always have access to the resources that I do; both of these things can be simultaneously true.
While I’m not suggesting we deemphasize the importance of education as part of one’s identity, we can also recognize that intelligence can exist separately from education and acknowledge the diversity of abilities, knowledge and experiences that exist regardless of level of education. Additionally, we can work to broaden our horizons by widening our social circles to include people from different backgrounds, abilities and walks of life, and the first step is often as simple as starting a conversation.
