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I know a ton of working class women who accessed higher ed & grad studies after having children. Many of them went into education & their degrees are a source of pride for their families.
If GOP intends to become the party of working class, they might want to get to know the working class. Attacks on an older woman in a community college context won't play well there.
They might play well among middle- upper class b/c it affirms their family structures & particular vision of the Academy. Working classes access & relate to higher ed differently.
E.g. We recently had a guy put a new ceiling in our basement. He is in late-40s & high school education. As a writer, I have a ton of books down there & I could tell they caught his attention.
We were talking about his work & he seemed a bit apologetic, saying he'd been a "mud man" his whole life. I didn't care but he seemed to. I told him about my dad who's a handy man. But here's the other thing: His wife is a teacher taught my kid, a huge source of pride for him.
She went back to school after their kids went to kindergarten & earned her ed degree. Asynchronous educational levels are not uncommon around here with women usually having higher level.
And it's something that becomes a huge source of pride for entire family because the entire family had to work to get it. IOW, it's a very dif thing to be unmarried pursuing higher ed & married w/ kids. Everyone's investing.
All that to say, I know folks are reading attacks on Jill Biden as misogynistic & they are, but they're also a bit classist which is going to land wrong on a demographic just now being able to access higher ed.
And to be clear, attacks on community college are attacks on people who need to stay local for a variety of reasons including cost, job, & family responsibilities. Framing it as a dif in intellectual capacity is horrible.
