Rakesh Kumar and Kripa did as they were told to change their lives. Both completed a Bachelor’s degree in humanities and a B.Ed., credentials that, in theory, open doors to stable teaching jobs, steady salaried incomes and the security that is typically associated with the middle class.But Rakesh spends twelve hours a day working in an oil mill in Sirohi, southern Rajasthan, earning Rs 500 a day. Kripa works in a factory in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, earning Rs 14,000 a month. Stretching her shifts by another six hours, she adds enough overtime to take her income to nearly Rs 21,000. There are no holidays, no job security and little scope for savings.Their degrees hang quietly in the background, disconnected from their daily lives and labour. In the very limited rest time they have, they prepare for competitive exams to government jobs.Rakesh and Kripa’s stories are not exceptions. Across Rajasthan’s tribal districts of Udaipur, Dungarpur, Salumbar and Banswara, educated young men and women find themselves in similar positions – qualified on paper, yet oscillating between exam preparation, private school jobs, factory shifts and migration. Education has expanded aspirations. What it has not consistently delivered is stability.Why does this gap persist? How does a system meant to create mobility instead produce prolonged waiting, fragile gains and repeated returns to survival work? To understand this contradiction, one must look beyond individual effort and examine the structures shaping the journey from classroom to livelihood.The uneven startEducation is often described as the great equaliser. In southern Rajasthan’s tribal regions, however, it begins on uneven ground. For decades, national policies have emphasised on early childhood education through Anganwadi centres. In practice, the learning component remains weak. Many children enter Class 1 without basic literacy or numeracy.Schooling in the tribal villages of the region is hampered by fragile infrastructure and overstretched teachers. School buildings are frequently in poor condition, sometimes forcing children to travel long distances to continue their education. A recent government technical audit found that over 56% of Rajasthan’s government school classrooms require major repairs or are in dilapidated condition. Learning, quite literally, begins in broken rooms. Even where buildings stand, instruction is inconsistent. In small Adivasi schools, a single teacher often handles multiple grades while managing administrative duties, leaving little room for focused teaching.Language adds another layer of structural disadvantage. Many children grow up speaking Wagdi at home, yet schooling begins in Hindi. Students take years to become comfortable with the classroom language. Some only begin to follow lessons meaningfully by Class 4 or 5. Without teachers fluent in local languages or bridge pedagogy in early grades, attendance does not automatically translate into comprehension. The foundation remains shaky.Automatic promotion until Class 8 under the Right to Education Act further masks these learning gaps. Students move forward without mastering basics. By Class 9, when formal examinations become serious, accumulated weaknesses surface sharply. Failure at this stage often leads to dropout, as a culture of sustained academic support has not taken root. It is telling that many government school teachers themselves do not send their own children to these schools.The children in classrooms today represent a generational shift. Even one or two decades before, much of the families could not afford even the modest costs associated with schooling – uniforms, shoes, the occasional fee and children were routinely kept home to tend to agriculture and livestock.Young girls in the Thar desert of Rajasthan. The younger girls go to school and the older ones stay at home. Photo: Ji-Elle, Wikimedia Commons.A significant number of today’s older generations and adults grew up without any formal schooling at all and women bear a disproportionate share of that gap. That generation largely lost out. Yet something has changed. Having seen the limits of a life without education, many of these same families are now making different choices for their children. The school-going child has become a symbol of a different future, even if the quality of that schooling remains uneven.Lack of directionThose who persist through school often do so without guidance. Typical middle-class families rely on networks, such as their relatives in secure jobs, seniors who decode competitive exams, mentors who explain career pathways. In many tribal villages, parents with limited schooling cannot offer such resources. Educational decisions unfold in fragments: choose a subject, complete a degree and only later discover what the labour market demands.Structural constraints choices further. Science and commerce streams are limited in rural higher secondary schools. Humanities have become the default, for reasons ranging from termed easy to being economically feasible. A B.A degree follows. Graduation, however, often brings disillusionment. Degrees do not come with placement support or clear pathways into employment. Many graduates discover they lack both professional networks and practical knowledge of the job market.In this vacuum, one aspiration dominates: a government job. For educated tribal youth, exams like REET (Rajasthan Eligibility Examination for Teachers) represent not just employment, but security – fixed income, regulated hours and long-term stability. The scale of enrolment in B.Ed. and STC courses reflects this collective hope, far exceeding the actual demand for teaching positions.Preparation for such exams requires years of sustained study. Some families redistribute labour so that one member can prepare while others earn. Others remain suspended between work and study for years. Waiting appears rational because the reward is significant. Yet the waiting is costly. Many work long shifts in factories or construction to support themselves, leaving little time or energy to study. The bind becomes circular: clearing the exam requires time; time requires resources; without resources, one must work; work erodes time. A generation stands before a narrow gate of opportunity, knowing that only a few will pass through.The income paradox and fragile gainsFor those who drop out because education feels distant or inaccessible – and for those who cut short their studies to shoulder family responsibilities – options fall away quickly. In a weak rural economy, the neighbourhood itself offers few viable paths forward. Among adolescents, smartphones and motorcycles – the everyday markers of modern life, exert a quiet pull, especially as they watch their elder brothers spend their earnings not just on gadgets and bikes, but also on small everyday pleasures that signal adulthood.These aspirations demand immediate cash, something neither schooling nor already-stretched parents can readily supply. Migration becomes the practical answer. Many begin with short stints during school vacations, then continue intermittently. Some eventually drop out, even as their names remain on school registers.From a distance, migration appears rewarding. Daily wages in Gujarat, one of the primary destinations, start around Rs 400, translating to Rs 12,000-18,000 per month. In factories, with extended shifts sometimes reaching 14 or 15 hours a day, earnings can rise to Rs 25,000, often without regard for health or safety. The logic is simple: earn as much as possible, as quickly as possible, because replacement is always possible. Another migrant can step in tomorrow.Back in the village, graduates with B.A. and B.Ed. degrees often find work in private schools or occasionally in NGOs, with starting salaries around Rs 6,000 per month – far below minimum wage standards and significantly lower than what their peers earn in informal urban labour. The choice is not between dignity and labour. It is between low-paid formal aspiration and relatively higher-paid informal survival.Locals engage in rescue work after a decrepit government school building collapsed, killing several students, in Jhalawar, Rajasthan, Friday, July 25, 2025. Photo: PTI.Numerous graduates from these locations work hard in the informal economy and, during their minimal time after work, prepare for public service examinations, as they find it difficult to let go of aspiring for a better tomorrow. Also because, in the informal economy, there is hardly a significant difference between the income of a newcomer and an experienced worker.In southern Rajasthan, where agriculture yields little surplus and industries are few, migration is not a stepping stone but a necessity. It sustains households in the present while postponing long-term mobility. Adolescents follow the paths of older relatives, drawn by visible earnings, only to find themselves circling back years later with limited savings and significant physical strain.Among the lesser-discussed drains on household finances is the notra tradition – once a form of communal solidarity during marriages, where contributions were made to support the family. Over time, this has hardened into a mandatory debt cycle: families give more than they can afford, borrow to meet obligations they cannot cover and repay more than they received. The interest on loans taken just to fulfil notra commitments compounds the burden, escalating well beyond what any ceremony warrants.For many households, it is this accumulated weight – social obligation layered over borrowed money – that pushes members into migration. Not opportunity, but debt makes them leave.Some do approach the edges of middle-class security, yet remain vulnerable. Sunil from Kherwara worked in Kuwait for ten years as an AC repair technician. His monthly earnings rose from Rs 40,000 to Rs 70,000, despite episodes of wage theft by his contractor. He regularly sent home around Rs 50,000, building modest savings. Then a leg injury disrupted everything. Without insurance or social security, medical treatment consumed much of his savings. The remainder was used by his family to send his brother abroad through agents, hoping to sustain their upward mobility. They were defrauded, losing nearly Rs 1.5 lakh.Sunil’s experience illustrates how fragile mobility can be. And this is not an isolated case. For many families, the distance between modest security and renewed poverty is only one illness, one injury, or one financial scam away.Others, like Rama Devi from Kushalgarh, are carving out paths through self-employment. Fueled by initiatives like the Rajeevika (Rajasthan Grameen Aajeevika Vikas Parishad) and Lakhpati Didi Scheme, which provides skill training and credit support, she and many women in her locality are building micro-enterprises. These financial lifelines allow them an opportunity to seek independence through their own entrepreneurship.Sohan’s journey was equally non-linear. An advocate practicing in the sessions court of Salumbar, he arrived there after many detours. Early in his schooling, he secured admission to a Navodaya residential school, which he says exposed him to a world far removed from his village. Back home, he recalls, the prevailing mindset was simple: “Mehnat karo, mazdoori karo, aur jeeo” (work hard, earn daily wages and get by). There was little space to imagine a long-term future.Financial strain forced him to stop his studies after Class 12. He took up a call centre job earning Rs 8,000 a month. Encouraged by seniors who told him a degree was necessary for promotion, he earned a bachelor’s degree in humanities through distance education. He then pursued a B.Ed., worked as a private school teacher for Rs 6,000 a month and simultaneously prepared for the REET exam. Over time, he realised he was moving along a path shaped more by circumstance and imitation than conviction. None of it felt like his calling. That recognition pushed him to enrol in a law degree.Today, as a practicing advocate earning around Rs 60,000 a month, despite facing caste-based neglect at work, he realises that clearer guidance earlier in life might have shortened the long, winding route he took. He is now preparing for examination to become a judge.A system out of alignmentWhat emerges from these experiences is a fundamental mismatch between the education system and the labour market. The former produces credentials faster than the labour market can produce jobs people actually want. Thousands graduate with B.A. and B.Ed. degrees each year, but formal teaching positions remain scarce and recruitment is irregular. Their choices are limited – either low-paid formal work that meets their qualifications but fails to provide livelihood security, or relatively higher-paid informal work that offers immediate income but no future protection. Neither is a route to middle-class security.Return, for a moment, to Rakesh and Kripa. They aspire to be in a stable middle-class position – not a status defined by income alone. It rests on the predictability of regular wages, job security, social protection and the ability to plan beyond one month. These are never the outcome of individuals striving but require structural change: stronger early education, meaningful career guidance, focus on STEM courses, fair and regular government recruitment, informal economy regulation to address social protections, decent wages and, most importantly, standard work hours that gives people time to prepare for their tomorrows.Without these, the struggle to break free will continue to collide with structural barriers, leaving aspirations trapped.Vignesh M. is a researcher associated with the Aajeevika Bureau.