Gary Cohn Quotes

We aspire to be equal opportunity, but all across the country where a student is born, their race, their class affect where they end up.

The traditional story of economists has been to say education explains what the returns are to school. I say, 'Okay, that's fine, but what explains the education? How much is just a matter of my giving you a poor kid versus a rich kid?'

Tomorrow everybody--or practically everybody--will have had the education of the upper class of yesterday.

Education is the great equalizer, and shouldn’t be limited to the wealthiest few.

One of society's thorniest problems is that children from poor families start school lagging badly behind their more affluent classmates in readiness.

If events had taken a different course, I could have been one of those children going to a school without the sorts of opportunities that I've subsequently had.

There are a lot of children in our country that, because of their neighborhood or socio-economic status, do not have the opportunity to attend a good school that will prepare them for life's challenges.

We know that the enemy of upward mobility is not poverty or even other people's success. The enemy of upward mobility is apathy and an educational system that offers choice to the privileged and traps the most vulnerable in unsafe and poor performing schools.

Let me ask you: Should only children of the wealthy have access to quality early education? Should only children of the wealthy have access to a college degree? The answer - the only answer - is: no.

If you are born into poverty, the chances are good that your children will be born into poverty. Find a way to give poor kids the same cognitive stimulus that rich kids receive, and they should end up with the same tools for success.

In some parts of the world, students are going to school every day. It's their normal life. But in other part of the world, we are starving for education... it's like a precious gift. It's like a diamond.

The gap in education in this country, the unfairness of the schools, is one of the great unfairness in this society.

I am very fortunate I can send my kids to private school, but everybody does not have the money. If you cannot get your kid in a good school today, your kids are going to be behind the eight ball.

The schools that suffer are the schools in, in poor neighborhoods. They are the neighborhoods with the greatest need, with the parents struggling to work and to make ends meet. They don't have enough resources to give, they don't have enough resources to pay more, and these are the neighborhoods that go first.

There's no reason why children in inner cities or rural areas do not receive the same quality education or opportunities as those in suburbs or wealthy neighborhoods. If we truly believe in giving all citizens a chance to pursue happiness and pursue their goals, then we cannot continue to marginalize entire groups of people.

I want to fight poverty and ignorance and give opportunity to those people who are locked out.

All around the world, we send our top talent into finance, technology, medicine and law - everywhere but towards expanding opportunity for our most marginalized children.

I grew up in a very progressive family and with a great educational system, and I asked myself, 'Why doesn't everybody have these opportunities for a good education? So why not give back to these kids who didn't grow up with the same privileges I had?'

America's 'social contract' is equal opportunity... yet we have failed in achieving that seminal goal.

If we do not provide education for every single American, we are consigning those without an education to second-class status.

If we don't empower families to be able to have a quality education, then their children - for the first time in American history, truly the first time - will not have the same economic opportunities.

In America we believe that every child, no matter where they live, who their family is, or what the color of their skin, is entitled to as good an education as the richest parent in America can give to their children.

What I'd like to say is that I think the lives of every one of these little kids who are trapped in these unsafe and failing schools are too important, and I'm willing to take the abuse in order to help them.

I believe education should be a right for every child, but tragically in many parts of world it is a privilege for certain children whose parents have money. There are 72 million children in the world who don't go to school and many of them are in Africa.

The system that had grown up in most states is that wealthy districts with an affluent population can afford to spend a lot more on their public school systems than the poorer districts.