It is interesting to me that everyone seems to focus on what is happening at colleges.
I think the message here that parents and schools are not doing nearly as good of a job at educating poor students as they are at educating higher income students?
Why doesn’t anyone try to treat the problem instead of the symptom?
I wonder how many kids who could get into Yale attend CS-F?
It seems to be the accepted conventional wisdom that poor kids should go to the “best” school they can get into (and maybe everyone - that’s kind of why CC exists), but I’m not sure what the evidence is that poor kids do better in those more selective/elite/endowed/whatever schools.
The very well endowed ones will make it cheapest for them, and will cover things like books and travel, should they be able to get in, so that’s an obvious advantage. But it’snot clear that if they could go to Yale or CS-F with all expenses paid that they’d do better (graduate on time) at Yale. Maybe they’d do exactly as well at a lower tier school, I haven’t seen any evidence either way.
Perhaps someone else has.
@GMTplus7 are you saying that you wouldn’t have an issue if all the faces were the same color? Poverty affects everyone
That was what the article was about.
Sure, and the drop out rate in inner city schools is abysmal, but that should be the topic of a new thread.
Groupthink is often wrong. 
^ that might be an interesting thread to start. Is it in fact better for low income bright kids to attend selective/elite colleges? Does being at a school where the vast majority graduate on time and are also high achievers make it more likely that the low income high achiever will also graduate an time or is that kid going to do just as well at a directional or taking the CC-to-4-year route?
I’d assumed yes and have read it in many articles - that’s why Questbridge and Posse and many orgs exist - but it would be interesting to hear opinions on that. I think I will start one.
Just one data point, but as a former low SES admit to a highly selective college (although certainly not Yale level) I can say absolutely that going to a school with the money and resources to help a kid not used to some of the really basic rules of education that most upper middle class and higher kids (including my own) learn early helped me get through and graduate.
I think people sometimes misinterpret some of the academic challenges faced by low SES kids from crappy high schools who head off to college. I am not talking about the relative difference in academic rigor between Bucknell (where I attended) and a local state school, but just basic things like learning that you have to show up for class regularly, how to take notes, the need to do your work regularly, or how to study. In my high school, no one cared if I showed up for class, because I was smart enough to do well on the tests and didn’t create problems for the teacher (well, the last may not be absolutely true). I certainly never took a note in my life, and a particular point of pride was that I did not take a single school book out of my locker for my entire senior year. This behavior was not unusual in my high school, and I guarantee it is not unusual in bottom performing urban (probably suburban and rural too) high schools now. In fact, things are likely worse. I don’t think people realize how truly terrible some of our public high schools are compared to the schools most of our kids attend.
In any event, the challenges I outlined above will hit the low SES kid whether he is at Amherst or Univ of Akron. I know plenty of kids (athletes and non athletes) who went to our state universities and fumbled around for a quarter or three before dropping out or being kicked out because they didn’t have the tools necessary to succeed and/or know how to access the support network to get them help. The benefit of a smaller, more elite school is that there is a greater chance the kid is helped by the ever-present academic advising, reaches out to the myriad tutoring services available, or that a prof in one of his generally much smaller classes takes an interest and extends a hand.
Its not just about who took the most APs (I didn’t even know what AP was when I got to college) or who went to the science olympiad.
@bluebayou Wow you must have read their minds. What you don’t know is that many from the “hood” may want to attend but don’t have the resources as their high SES counterparts. If they had those resources I bet you won’t see many of them in the “hood” anymore. Education changes lives.
@Much2learn As someone else said here, low SES / poor students don’t have the opportunities and luxuries that high SES students have. And most of the time, the low SES are working either to help their families out or to help take care of siblings. And also, it is more common for low SES students to go to a less resourceful public school than high SES students whose parents send to private or even high ranking schools in the US. Therefore, the parents and schools don’t have a lot of resources to help the low SES students to reach their potential, as this is the case in the area that I live. Most of the time the outcome is that the students often end up going to CC’s.
Now you are the one reading minds (and telling me what I do or don’t know)! Although I grew up in the hood (back in the dark ages), I never claimed to know the mind set of today’s kids. Have you ever seen a survey? I sure haven’t.
My point has always been that we should just not assume that they WANT to attend a tony private (generally NE) college, as most of these articles and research do assume. Perhaps many top low SES students would prefer to attend attend their instate flagship, and enjoy D1 sports, etc.?
Indeed it does. But is the education from say, UVa, U-Alabama or U-Texas or U-Wisconsin, or a UC that much worse than that obtained from the Ancient Eight? Would a top student have that much of a lower grad rate if s/he attended one of those than an Ivy/top LAC? THAT is the question.
I pity the financial dilemma harvard faces in admitting more needy poor kids. It must be hard making ends meets with a $37.6 billion endowment. After all, 2.5% earnings on $37.6 billion is only an extra billion dollars per year.
^ Berea makes tuition free for all with a ONE billion dollar endowment. If you make more than about $60K a year, don’t bother applying, you won’t get in - 99% of first year students are Pell eligible.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-kentuckys-berea-college-got-such-a-big-endowment-2015-3
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/education/21endowments.html
Then again, Harvard uses its endowment to fund research and such, not only student buildings and services.
@JasmineArmani “Therefore, the parents and schools don’t have a lot of resources to help the low SES students to reach their potential, as this is the case in the area that I live. Most of the time the outcome is that the students often end up going to CC’s.”
Certainly resources help. Especially if the building is crumbling and they can’t find dependable quality teachers, and students are hungry and aren’t safe, but those things are only the tip of the iceberg. If you address them all, a significant gap will persist.
Any serious attempt to really eliminate this gap has to begin with educating the parents, or keeping the kids at school so much that you effectively replace the parents. Any other approach will fail.
http://www.collegemeasures.org/4-year_colleges/institution/berea-college-ky/scorecard/strategic-measures/ says that Berea spends $27,781 per student. With about 1,600 students, that means that it spends about $44-45 million per year (not including room and board, which it does charge students). However, some of the tuition subsidy per student is in the form a $6,000 labor grant in exchange for part time work, so the actual subsidy needed from the endowment may be more like $34-35 million per year. A $1 billion endowment would have to have an investment rate of return of 3.4-3.5% plus inflation to continue covering the tuition subsidy, assuming there were no other things the endowment’s investment income needs to cover.
Yes as I recall the room and board is basically covered by Pell and work-study. Some kids take loans as well but I don’t think it’s much.
https://www.berea.edu/student-financial-aid/cost-of-attendance/ indicates that Berea’s room and board and other expenses not covered by the grants covering tuition are relatively low ($7,042 billed costs including room and board, $3,100 estimated other costs for books, transportation, and personal costs).