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this is the "weekly insights on education" column of the tencent news education channel. each issue will analyze and comment on hot topics in education, policy trends or people's opinions in the past week.

author: ding yang

this week, phoenix weekly’s “"has become a popular educational article. the article tells that amidst the downgrading of middle-class consumption, international schools are no longer popular. middle-class families who originally spent a lot of money to send their children to international schools are unable to afford it. they regret it and even switch back to public schools.

"it's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but it's hard to go from luxury to frugality! it's the children who suffer, how nice it is to live a plain life!" "isn't it good to leave some money for the children?" looking at these messages, you can feel that this theme the reason why it has attracted attention on multiple platforms has somewhat triggered the mentality of "watching him rise and watching his building collapse".

in fact, when facing economic headwinds, some international schools close down and some middle-class families are unable to cope with their needs. this is a normal phenomenon. some families described in the article found that some international schools were too expensive and the teaching quality was not as good as expected. this had little to do with economic headwinds. the two-way selection process between families and schools required adjustment and trial and error. some families realized that it was not so good. it's normal for you. as for some children who are pursuing international careers and cannot find jobs when they return home, similar reports have long been reported, which would not surprise such families.

in other words, after reading the article, if you are affected by such terrible words as "cutting off confession" and feel that these families who don't know the heights of the world are really "collapsed", and the "bullfrog" you originally expected to be your own will become a "poor baby", you will be in the tragic situation of losing both your money and your studies - i'm afraid it's a bit wishful thinking.

in fact, many studies have pointed out that when economic headwinds occur, middle-class families will not significantly reduce their children’s education expenditures. they will still expect their children to continue their wealth and class status through education. in contrast, the lower-income families are, the more likely they are to cut education spending during economic headwinds. you think that children who originally studied in international schools will "fall" to public schools and return to the same starting point as your children, but these families are likely to continue to invest in extracurricular education that you are not aware of, and they may still pull their children apart in the future. the gap between.

this possibility may be something that onlookers need to take seriously.

for example, "waterbund education" this year introduced a project published in 2022 by alia hamid rao, assistant professor at the london school of economics and political science.. she conducted in-depth interviews with more than 70 dual-income families in the united states. before one of the men and women lost their jobs, these families had an annual income ranging from $150,000 to $600,000. they can be said to be standard or even relatively wealthy middle-class families. will these families change the way they spend on their children's education after one partner loses his or her job? the study found that whether the man or woman is unemployed, most of these families choose to maintain a high level of expenditure on their children's education, grit their teeth and continue to spend money, believing that cutting child-related expenditures threatens their class status.

the fact that "middle-class families will not significantly cut education expenditures when the economy goes into headwinds" has been discovered earlier. as stanford university researchers pointed out in a 2017 article, during the "great recession" triggered by the global financial crisis around 2008, high-income families spent significantly more on education than low-income families, and this gap is declining. "continues to exist and expand" during this period. in other words, during periods of economic headwinds, inequality in household investment in education increases. high-income families spend more on education, including enrolling their children in extracurricular activities, purchasing home education toys and books, hiring tutors, sending them to better schools, etc.

why is this happening? because high-income families are more convinced that investment in education is crucial for children's development and learning. only by being willing to spend money on education so that children can have better academic performance, better education and knowledge, and better career prospects can the entire family better navigate the economic cycle. in comparison, spending less in other areas, such as cutting back on daily necessities, is not a big deal.

in china, academic circles have made similar findings. a 2014 study in "fudan education forum" focused on "the impact of uncertainty on the propensity to spend on education among urban and rural families" and found that income uncertainty has no significant impact on the average propensity to spend on education among urban families, but for rural households the family impact is relatively large. in addition to the relatively imperfect social security system and lack of stable wage income for rural residents, the difference in understanding of education is an important reason. urban families are more confident that education expenditures will pay off in the future, while rural families lack confidence because the education return cycle is long and the effects are unclear. when faced with income uncertainty, they tend to cut education expenditures. if there are differences between urban and rural areas, then within cities, there may also be differences between high-income families and low-income families.

therefore, when those families who originally had the ability to attend international schools retreated and settled for the next best thing after "cutting off the supply", their most likely approach was to spend money on education in other ways, spending a lot of money to hire famous teachers to make up lessons in roundabout ways, and to train students in various fields. talents, etc. the knowledge of these families determines that they will most likely continue to "roll" and "chicken babies".

from a social perspective, this may not be a good thing. overly involutional education has exhausted too many children. to solve this problem, in addition to finding ways to adopt measures such as "double reduction", the most important approach for education administrators is to further increase public investment in education, so as to make up for the educational shortage of low-income families when they face economic headwinds. insufficient spending. only by allowing the vast majority of families in the entire society to enjoy sufficient investment in education can we avoid further social differentiation, promote social mobility, and prevent the natural inheritance of power and status between generations.

for individual families, especially those with relatively low incomes and who are completely out of reach of international schools, it is necessary to realize that the mentality of "seeing his building collapse" is not acceptable. don't think that after the "building collapse", those families' education expenditures will be the same as yours, and that you can pay less attention to your children's education - if you hold such an idea, then in the future social competition, your own children may fall behind.

as a sober reader said in a comment on the article "ending supply", "in fact, during the economic downturn, it is more important to invest in education. the return on investment in education is the most impressive, but it will not be possible until more than ten years later. it’s up to you to see if you can survive it.”

in the face of economic headwinds, maintaining investment in children's education while preventing the harm of "rollover" is still an issue that every family needs to pay attention to.

insights from previous education weeks——