The trickle-down effect of education – Term Paper

Being born and raised in completely different countries than the United States has given me a unique perspective on how the world works. My family moved to the US in 2012 for the same reason I am today writing this essay: Education. Both my parents were lucky enough to get at least a Bachelor`s degree from their respective universities. Even with that accomplishment, they wanted better for my siblings and me. They understood from their own experiences that a better education guarantees a better life, not just for us, but for the people we surround because learning motivates people to change and through our understanding we can motivate other to change as well.

Like my experience, the easiest and most important solutions to all problems in the world in general is educating the people about that problem. When countries are developing, there is a huge population boom because more children have access to medical care and therefore there are more children surviving. Though it is a good thing, more people around the world means more of the earth`s resources being used unsustainably. In other words, the world cannot handle this many people. The leading strategy in combating this problem has been educating women. First, the women are taught the harm to the planet and the benefits of a smaller family and second, they get a grade school education so that they can either get a job or make their own businesses. The lives of these women and their families are transformed. Because they are empowered and educated they can bring themselves out of poverty and lead good lives. Society no longer sees them as lower than men, and they become the breadwinners of the family. Another change also came about because of mothers entering the workforce, fathers became more involved in their children`s lives. The pressure of providing for their families was a shared burden between a couple creating a more equal union.

In my home country of Eritrea, one can see the world of diffserence education has made on the entire society. My grandmother had a fourth-grade education, got married by the age of 16 and her job was to be a stay-at-home mom to her ten children. Around thirty years later, my mother had a completely different life; she went to university, got married at 30, and worked at an office. Even with three children, my mother continued working and co-supporting our family financially. In stark contrast to his father, my father was extremely involved in our lives and helped take care of us as we grew up. Both my parents learned to balance their professional and personal lives instead of sacrificing one for the other.

The trickle-down effect of education is astounding because it not only changes the present of the people educated, it alters their future and their family`s future and inadvertently remodels how society works. By educating women, the planet is more sustainable, women able to join the workforce, they can be alone or have an equal relationship with their partner, they can pull their families out of poverty and in turn their children will have better lives, society sees them as equals and I get to pursue my dream of being an engineer in one of the top engineering schools in the country.