Young people - not just those in the inner city, but all nonaffluent young people - suffer the brunt of this shortfall.

"They can't do it and they feel nonaffluent and not adequately compensated for the number of hours they must work to make ends meet."

The survey said that 11 percent of affluent travelers will cash in miles for air travel this year, compared with 2 percent of nonaffluent travelers.

He also points out the ways that nonwhite, nonaffluent residents of Los Angeles have been patronized, marginalized and rendered invisible by their insular, self-involved natives and by well-meaning interlopers.

Research, as well as common knowledge, informs us that the experience of a child in an urban school in a nonaffluent community is not the same as the experience of a child in a suburban affluent community.

"If we are successful here, then the City University as a concept and an idea will be successful," she said, speaking of the many institutions across the country whose task is to prepare minorities and the nonaffluent for the next millennium.