The central argument I plan to make in my research-based paper is that education is supposed to be an avenue by which the underprivileged can go as far as their talents will take them, but that today it achieves the opposite: ensures that the no one except the privileged can go to college without taking out a crippling amount of debt.  I will point to my parent’s experiences to show the shortcomings of our education system historically.  And then I will bring in my own story to show how these shortcomings have only been exacerbated in the last 30 years.  I plan to look at the issue of college affordability through the lens of the underprivileged, with emphasis placed on America’s ideal of social mobility.