I think parents income plays a big role in whether a child does go to college. But today there are a few programs that will allow for children to get into college. It does make it harder for children who don't come from an affluent background, but it's not impossible. As a society it would be great if we're able to bridge the gap, so that it doesn't matter which social class a child falls under to determine whether a child have the opportunity to further their education.
So - you are saying that smart successful parents pass on their smart successful genes to their offspring who go on to become smart and successful.
Alert the Nobel committee.
Alert the Nobel committee.
1
You could change the x-axis name from parents' income percentile to students' SAT score, and you'd see no change in your college chances line.
1
"Attending college" is an absurd data point to focus on because nearly half of the kids that enroll fail out (with suffocating debt). Another absurd data point is looking at the degree rate—as if all degrees and all colleges are created equal. Anyone can get a communications degree from a commuter college if they show up for 6 years. Did they learn anything, let alone $120,000 worth of information? No.
1
How likely is it that children who grow up in very poor families go to college?
Depends on the parents.
My children came from a 'very poor family'. As a young widow with two children born before women had any reproductive rights, we were dirt poor until my children were well into their teens.
But both children could read before the entered First Grade...why? Because I taught them, despite working, despite going back to college myself (the very reason we are not poor anymore...imagine that!).
Yes, it is easier to be rich than to be poor - hardly news - but no excuses work when it comes to the raising of children their parents freely chose to bring into the world.
Depends on the parents.
My children came from a 'very poor family'. As a young widow with two children born before women had any reproductive rights, we were dirt poor until my children were well into their teens.
But both children could read before the entered First Grade...why? Because I taught them, despite working, despite going back to college myself (the very reason we are not poor anymore...imagine that!).
Yes, it is easier to be rich than to be poor - hardly news - but no excuses work when it comes to the raising of children their parents freely chose to bring into the world.
6
The authors are taking a logarithmic phenomenon and representing it in a linear fashion. A very useful and common technique when trying to understand certain data.
At the low end of the spectrum, each additional dollar of income has a greater impact on your chances of college education. The impact per dollar decreases as your income increases. This flattens the relationship.
Intuition aside, graduation rates would look roughly the same if you consider all age groups. Where I think you'd end up with an S-curve is 4-year graduation rates. Which taking 2 or more additional years to complete school while earning little or no income is a significant economic disadvantage and likely predicative of future earning potential.
At the low end of the spectrum, each additional dollar of income has a greater impact on your chances of college education. The impact per dollar decreases as your income increases. This flattens the relationship.
Intuition aside, graduation rates would look roughly the same if you consider all age groups. Where I think you'd end up with an S-curve is 4-year graduation rates. Which taking 2 or more additional years to complete school while earning little or no income is a significant economic disadvantage and likely predicative of future earning potential.
I assumed 4 year university enrolment given the different usage of the terms college and university in the US and Canada. I guessed wrong.
I need a bit for clarity to get the line right. Are we talking only about enrolling in four year colleges? Do two year colleges count? Other post-secondary programs? For profits and non-profits? We are talking about attending for how long? One semester? One year? So, do we count drop outs and stop outs? Returners to college? Is this only for 18 --24 year olds? Yes, income impacts attendance (and summer melt). It has an even greater impact, I believe, on graduation. Need more to understand more here. Welcome added data. Follow: @KarenGrossEdu
That was easy. I don't understand how people who read newspapers (the NY Times for goodness sake) could be way off mark! More interesting would be a study of who actually graduates from college and even more correlation between majors and actual employment in chosen fields. For all the talk of college, the population of those with an actual degree is still surprisingly small.
5
People like to say that poor kids get to go to top colleges for free, but don't kid yourself: those colleges know exactly how much money applicants have based on the hundreds of data points they provide, even if they never state their income. They are absolutely going to severely limit the number of full price kids.
3
Interesting article. The scientist of me loves these Upshot articles for the way they show interactive data.
The article mentions that absolute wealth difference varies quite a bit between percentiles. I wonder if this linear relationship exists in most countries or is some weird by-product of the US being a moderately unequal society. More data would be interesting here.
The article mentions that absolute wealth difference varies quite a bit between percentiles. I wonder if this linear relationship exists in most countries or is some weird by-product of the US being a moderately unequal society. More data would be interesting here.
4
Straight line is a striking result indeed!
The problem is a complex one for all incomes: At the bottom, the question is whether it is worth it to get into significant debt for a degree that may offer dubious competitive advantages. At the top, spending 200K or more on someone who shows zero scholarly aptitude is still a waste of time and money and an exercise in frustration no matter how much money one has in the bank.
To me, the straight line suggest that in answering this question people do not use some kind of preconceived notion about the value of education, but rather they look around at what their income peers do. Taking a sample and trying to determine where one belongs is in essence a trend function that is inherently linear. Perfect linearity all the way through the income scale indicates that people are remarkably good at determining where they belong income-wise compared to people around them. It does not matter whether 1% differential corresponds to $2400 or $1 million.
This hypothesis would also explain why the curve is linear vs. income percentile, not income itself. When people compare themselves to others they do not think about money, they just try to figure out where they belong among let's say 20 people whose example they can use as a guide in making their own decision.
The problem is a complex one for all incomes: At the bottom, the question is whether it is worth it to get into significant debt for a degree that may offer dubious competitive advantages. At the top, spending 200K or more on someone who shows zero scholarly aptitude is still a waste of time and money and an exercise in frustration no matter how much money one has in the bank.
To me, the straight line suggest that in answering this question people do not use some kind of preconceived notion about the value of education, but rather they look around at what their income peers do. Taking a sample and trying to determine where one belongs is in essence a trend function that is inherently linear. Perfect linearity all the way through the income scale indicates that people are remarkably good at determining where they belong income-wise compared to people around them. It does not matter whether 1% differential corresponds to $2400 or $1 million.
This hypothesis would also explain why the curve is linear vs. income percentile, not income itself. When people compare themselves to others they do not think about money, they just try to figure out where they belong among let's say 20 people whose example they can use as a guide in making their own decision.
2
I'd be interested in the correlation between parents' education level and the percentage of their children who attend college. I'm guessing that some parents who went to college and graduate school aren't doing very well nowadays but are exposing children to a lot of intellectual stimuli nonetheless.
8
It is misleading to focus on college enrollment. Doing so leads to shallow 'fixes,' like enrolling any warm body who is willing to take on a loan. We should focus on
a) chances of graduation in a 4 year program
b) chances of graduation in a 2 year program
c) debt incurred as a percentage of household wealth.
I think that would open our eyes to how deep the problem really is.
Meanwhile, the continued focus on *enrolling* students in college benefits politicians who want a sound byte, banks, colleges & private investors who champion the fixes.
It ignores the cost/benefit to each student, the support that lower income students need while in college (wealthy students have private tutors, coaches, parents, years of grooming & preparation).
Finally, it completely ignores what the purpose of a college degree is. What exactly is its purpose?
There are countless blue collar jobs now that never used to require a college degree, e.g. secretaries, salesmen, etc. Why do they now need college at considerable cost?
Meanwhile, our gov't has forced out free trade education in high schools. Why the relentless emphasis on identical pre-college education for all when it is a fact that 25% our population has an IQ of less than 90? And what exactly is the shame in that? Why the scorn of hands-on labor & blue collar intelligence?
I think a major purpose of the pro-college-at-any-cost is to separate the classes even more, & to burden the lower & middle class with more debt. Appalling.
a) chances of graduation in a 4 year program
b) chances of graduation in a 2 year program
c) debt incurred as a percentage of household wealth.
I think that would open our eyes to how deep the problem really is.
Meanwhile, the continued focus on *enrolling* students in college benefits politicians who want a sound byte, banks, colleges & private investors who champion the fixes.
It ignores the cost/benefit to each student, the support that lower income students need while in college (wealthy students have private tutors, coaches, parents, years of grooming & preparation).
Finally, it completely ignores what the purpose of a college degree is. What exactly is its purpose?
There are countless blue collar jobs now that never used to require a college degree, e.g. secretaries, salesmen, etc. Why do they now need college at considerable cost?
Meanwhile, our gov't has forced out free trade education in high schools. Why the relentless emphasis on identical pre-college education for all when it is a fact that 25% our population has an IQ of less than 90? And what exactly is the shame in that? Why the scorn of hands-on labor & blue collar intelligence?
I think a major purpose of the pro-college-at-any-cost is to separate the classes even more, & to burden the lower & middle class with more debt. Appalling.
4
'Attended' isn't nearly as important as 'graduated'. That's why the actual line is more linear and at a higher level for lower income families.
4
I've taught college classes -- mostly to first-year students -- for over 40 years, and I didn't read carefully enough and based my line on graduation rates, not rates of attendance. My more nuanced line is probably, from what you say, closer to the norm for graduation. Over the years, I have seen over and over again the problems of retaining students from lower-income families. It's a problem that needs solving more than mere access.
5
Call me skeptical of the data. College is not vocational school. Show me enrollment or better yet graduation from a four year institution and you will see pretty low participation among the very poor. Lies, damn lies and then.... economists!
4
Surprised to be a 1%er!
After drawing my graph I was surprised to find out I was more accurate than 99% percent of responders. I wasn't surprised that I knew the answer almost perfectly, the surprise is that 99% did not. Even among NYtimes readers the level of "unawareness" is appalling.
After drawing my graph I was surprised to find out I was more accurate than 99% percent of responders. I wasn't surprised that I knew the answer almost perfectly, the surprise is that 99% did not. Even among NYtimes readers the level of "unawareness" is appalling.
4
They're not unaware. No one thinks the line should be straight or slope down. In fact, it looks as if most people think the line should swoop up, rather than climb steadily, and, in that, they are correct. They just didn't realize the X-axis, while linear in presentation, does not represent a linear distribution, but rather, an exponential one. This article is a red herring: everyone knows more rich kids than poor kids go to college; that's no surprise. What does seem, at first, to be surprising is that the correlation between income and college "attendance" is so perfectly linear. But that's an illusion, itself. The authors bury this lower down in the commentary, where they point out that the difference in annual income between the lowest two dots is $2,400 and between the highest two dots is $1 million. (And, if you could see the difference within that top dot, it would be in the tens, then the hundreds, then the thousands of millions--a difference in income of $1 million per year is peanuts, in the truly upper reaches.)
So, what is going on, is that everyone correctly thinks there should be curves in the slope. There are, but the exponential scale of the X-axis evens them out, making the result look like a straight line, when in reality it is curved.
So, what is going on, is that everyone correctly thinks there should be curves in the slope. There are, but the exponential scale of the X-axis evens them out, making the result look like a straight line, when in reality it is curved.
18
Now even more appalled, since when is a percentile distribution exponential???????? This country definitely has a mathematical crisis on their hands! Worse yet you had multiple likes thus they are as clueless as you are! At best the line would vary in its skew. The point is simple being patently obvious that the top 10% should be around 90 and the bottom ten percent should be 25%or less. The obvious expectation is that people would attend college in direct proportion to their income "percentile" thus a straight line. Just a smidgen of an idea about the income of college students would get you close to the correct answer .
1
So how about the graph that compares the parents' educational level with the children's likelihood of going to college? Suppose we look at two-parent families where both parent have graduate degrees, but the family income is in the bottom 50%?
3
It looks exactly the same since income correlates almost hand in hand with educational level.
2
Very instructive exercise with a very surprising result. I never expected a straight line result.
While income plays a substantial factor, my own personal experience compels me to suggest one other. I was raised by a single mother, living with relatives in what was then a working class area of Brooklyn. We survived on government benefits. Yet, for as long as I can remember, I was expected to go to college. So, all throughout my schooling after I was old enough to be aware, I lived with the assumption that I was going to college and I just did whatever I had to do. When I was accepted, I received government assistance, but I knew I had to work too, so I arranged my classes to allow me to work. Fortunately, the availability of quality colleges in New York City made it unnecessary for me to live on campus, or I might not been able to afford to do so.
That required that I commute daily to school and work via both bus and subway. I was exhausted every day when I got home. But, I did what I had to do.
Many of my friends in very similar situations did not go to college. They were not expected to. I was. That made all the difference.
While income plays a substantial factor, my own personal experience compels me to suggest one other. I was raised by a single mother, living with relatives in what was then a working class area of Brooklyn. We survived on government benefits. Yet, for as long as I can remember, I was expected to go to college. So, all throughout my schooling after I was old enough to be aware, I lived with the assumption that I was going to college and I just did whatever I had to do. When I was accepted, I received government assistance, but I knew I had to work too, so I arranged my classes to allow me to work. Fortunately, the availability of quality colleges in New York City made it unnecessary for me to live on campus, or I might not been able to afford to do so.
That required that I commute daily to school and work via both bus and subway. I was exhausted every day when I got home. But, I did what I had to do.
Many of my friends in very similar situations did not go to college. They were not expected to. I was. That made all the difference.
9
College is enormously expensive and requires four years of your life.
So of course your chances of going to college are directly correlated to your family's income.
It starts even earlier than that. About 20% kids fail to complete high school. That statistic is almost perfectly correlated with income: nearly 100% of dropouts come from families with below-average incomes. Only 80% of kids are eligible to even enroll in college to begin with.
I imagine the purchase of luxury vehicles European ski vacations are also correlated with income. Would that surprise anyone? Everything in our economy which is expensive is less accessible to poor people. Why should college be any different?
So of course your chances of going to college are directly correlated to your family's income.
It starts even earlier than that. About 20% kids fail to complete high school. That statistic is almost perfectly correlated with income: nearly 100% of dropouts come from families with below-average incomes. Only 80% of kids are eligible to even enroll in college to begin with.
I imagine the purchase of luxury vehicles European ski vacations are also correlated with income. Would that surprise anyone? Everything in our economy which is expensive is less accessible to poor people. Why should college be any different?
8
"t starts even earlier than that. About 20% kids fail to complete high school. That statistic is almost perfectly correlated with income: nearly 100% of dropouts come from families with below-average incomes. Only 80% of kids are eligible to even enroll in college to begin with."
Income and educational attainment are also highly correlated with IQ. In fact data shows that educational success is far more determined by IQ than by income. Of course since Income is also highly correlated to IQ, it would seem it would be first more prudent to draw lines in regards to how bright you are and how bright your parents are.
Income and educational attainment are also highly correlated with IQ. In fact data shows that educational success is far more determined by IQ than by income. Of course since Income is also highly correlated to IQ, it would seem it would be first more prudent to draw lines in regards to how bright you are and how bright your parents are.
3
Incorrect analysis. Because the two are correlated doesn't mean that higher IQs determine educational outputs. It perhaps means that staying in school helps increase/maintain IQ. IQ is not static over a lifetime and as you learn more skills in school, you ability to respond accurately and quickly and recognize patterns increase. So, if higher income keeps people in school, they may also end with higher IQs, overall helping them in their life.
1
"Incorrect analysis. Because the two are correlated doesn't mean that higher IQs determine educational outputs."
Decades of standardized tests say you are dead wrong.
Decades of standardized tests say you are dead wrong.
1
Just chiming in with the others about how great this interactive piece was. If future articles incorporate these kinds of engaging, thought-provoking elements with the story, the future of online journalism is most certainly alive and thriving! Well done!
7
That was cool. Let's have more interactive pieces like this!
10
Can you make many, many more of these kinds of graph, please? On many topics? I would LOVE to use them with my middle school students.
12
What a great use of the online medium! I love that it invites you think about the topic before reading the findings reported on. I also love that it discusses why one's expectations might have differed from the findings.
11
We could lift that whole curve up together, folks, whatever the factors linking college with affluence, by taking away the crushing college debt we tolerate now.
5
or we can eliminate the student loan program and, thus, eliminate student debt!
You seem to be missing the point that it is outrageous increases in tuition that has been the driving force in student debt.
You seem to be missing the point that it is outrageous increases in tuition that has been the driving force in student debt.
1
Now do a similar graph that links college attendance with post-graduate indebtedness. Methinks the line would be reversed . . .
7
There would be a lot of interesting ways to break that down (for-profit vs. non-profit attendance, federal vs. private loans, eligibility for income-based repayment, etc.)
1
The richest guy I personally know (Wall St, retired at 44) put himself through college and b school with 0 help from family. I also know a guy from a rich old money family who got out of Princeton and the best he's ever been able to do is manage a pool supply store. I'm not sure what this means in the grand scheme of things, but I often scratch my head in bewilderment at these two because their lives are just so very different.
4
"I also know a guy from a rich old money family who got out of Princeton and the best he's ever been able to do is manage a pool supply store."
Let's get judgmental, and in nasty, but meaningless, ways! Could be be that he LIKES what he's doing? Or that it's a family business that he just wants to continue? Or that he enjoys dealing with his customers? Or any one of a number of other possibilities?
The idea that people's life-satisfaction -- not to mention their value as people -- is somehow determined by their income is really a cancerous one, which is eating at the heart of the US, as well as other nations (but less so maybe).
It's well documented how many people on Wall Street are notoriously unhappy, pathetic human beings, driven by an all-consuming lust for Mammon, as well as some of the most notoriously anti-social, devoid-of-redeeming-social-value excess for "people" you'll ever see. Not to mention, shall we say, "ethically-challenged," ethics and morality being one of the most important lessons of a liberal arts education!
Living large ain't necessarily living well!
Let's get judgmental, and in nasty, but meaningless, ways! Could be be that he LIKES what he's doing? Or that it's a family business that he just wants to continue? Or that he enjoys dealing with his customers? Or any one of a number of other possibilities?
The idea that people's life-satisfaction -- not to mention their value as people -- is somehow determined by their income is really a cancerous one, which is eating at the heart of the US, as well as other nations (but less so maybe).
It's well documented how many people on Wall Street are notoriously unhappy, pathetic human beings, driven by an all-consuming lust for Mammon, as well as some of the most notoriously anti-social, devoid-of-redeeming-social-value excess for "people" you'll ever see. Not to mention, shall we say, "ethically-challenged," ethics and morality being one of the most important lessons of a liberal arts education!
Living large ain't necessarily living well!
10
money (like good looks or good genes) does not guarantee success is the philosophical implication I think you are looking for. The fates, as the ancient Greeks knew, also play an important role.
2
"Let's get judgmental, and in nasty, but meaningless, ways! "
"It's well documented how many people on Wall Street are notoriously unhappy, pathetic human beings..."
Bit of cognitive dissonance.
Painting someone as a failure for running a pool supply store diminishes the importance of college as more than a means to a lucrative end, and also implies a human value equated with monetary gain. None of that is good.
However, neither is demonizing people who choose careers that do yield large sums of money. Certainly many people who work lower-paying jobs would take to Wall Street if an offer came their way.
I also think it's incorrect to equate being a lower-paid member of society with being more ethical. Doesn't that paint the non-Wall Street regular folks in a sort of condescending light? It seems like a call to the idea that a "simpler" life lived by "simple" people is the pastoral ideal.
"It's well documented how many people on Wall Street are notoriously unhappy, pathetic human beings..."
Bit of cognitive dissonance.
Painting someone as a failure for running a pool supply store diminishes the importance of college as more than a means to a lucrative end, and also implies a human value equated with monetary gain. None of that is good.
However, neither is demonizing people who choose careers that do yield large sums of money. Certainly many people who work lower-paying jobs would take to Wall Street if an offer came their way.
I also think it's incorrect to equate being a lower-paid member of society with being more ethical. Doesn't that paint the non-Wall Street regular folks in a sort of condescending light? It seems like a call to the idea that a "simpler" life lived by "simple" people is the pastoral ideal.
2
The important think is how many kids graduate with a college degree , not how many go to college.
6
Income is essential to ensuring college for your children and grand children. First generation college students, as I was, require a "rich uncle". The son of a a single parent on a secretary's salary, I received vast amounts of aid, and loans, but still needed an outside sponsor to cover the gap.
Middle Class ($47,000 - $85,000 annual income) gets financial assistance, but both Middle Class and Rich (85K - 350K) families have to take out Parent PLUS loans. Super-Rich familes (> $350,000 income per year) can pay cash.
Life is competitive for everyone. I had it much easier than my grandfather who was 4 when he entered this country from Austria. And my sons have it easier than I had. So we all pay it forward.
Conclusion: Income and Family are essential!
Middle Class ($47,000 - $85,000 annual income) gets financial assistance, but both Middle Class and Rich (85K - 350K) families have to take out Parent PLUS loans. Super-Rich familes (> $350,000 income per year) can pay cash.
Life is competitive for everyone. I had it much easier than my grandfather who was 4 when he entered this country from Austria. And my sons have it easier than I had. So we all pay it forward.
Conclusion: Income and Family are essential!
2
That rich uncle is helpful for more than just money. Guidance, advice, setting expectations and providing encouragement that all is OK and you do belong are also essential.
But, emergency cash may be key. It means you don't have to drop out of school when life delivers an unhappy surprise either to the student or the family.
But, emergency cash may be key. It means you don't have to drop out of school when life delivers an unhappy surprise either to the student or the family.
it's really not ALL about income...like a flower you really love, a child has to be nurtured, loved, and determined to make it....NO MATTER the odds...yes hereditary intelligence, and money help, but in the end, he or she has to want it bad...
3
I'm sorry, but poor people love their children just as much as rich people. Lack of "love" is not what's causing these gross disparities. I'll grant you that nurturing helps, but it is much easier to fully nurture your child when you're rich. From better schools, to more books, to parents who aren't completely exhausted trying to work two minimum wage jobs, to adequate nutrition and shelter, rich kids have countless advantages that poor kids will never have. And that is because of their income, not because their parents somehow love them less.
8
Kate, you forget that many children of the upper middle class and wealthy, thanks to being spoiled, lazy, feeling too entitled, simply end up in lower positions that their own parents have. Drive, ambition, energy, discipline, intelligence and health also play very important roles in "success" (which can be defined in many ways).
2
"From better schools, to more books"
But a higher income would not help children of parents who do not value books or education and even attack those who do for "acting white".
But a higher income would not help children of parents who do not value books or education and even attack those who do for "acting white".
1
The chances of enrolling are better than I thought. However, given the pitch that many college throw at potential students while they are not upfront about the costs, I wonder how many students from lower income families graduate. College costs a lot of money. The debts incurred are not easy to pay off if one cannot find a job at any point in one's life. Furthermore, given how expensive college has become, if I were a low income student or even a middle to upper class student, I would be very, very wary of going to college without a way to pay for most of it without loans.
College has become the new high school. It was that way when I went back in the late 70s but even more now. We should not be sending as many to college as we are given the costs. We ought to be using the K-12 system to educate all students so that if they don't go to college they can still find a good job. Sometimes it seems that only ones making money off a college education are the institutions offering the loans to cover the costs. While a good education is priceless it should not be so costly as to leave a person in debt for most of their working life.
College has become the new high school. It was that way when I went back in the late 70s but even more now. We should not be sending as many to college as we are given the costs. We ought to be using the K-12 system to educate all students so that if they don't go to college they can still find a good job. Sometimes it seems that only ones making money off a college education are the institutions offering the loans to cover the costs. While a good education is priceless it should not be so costly as to leave a person in debt for most of their working life.
4
If you do a "find" search in this article, the word "graduate" appears just once and the word "complete" not at all. My point is that this graph is only addressing people who, at one point or another, attend college. But what's really important I believe, is completion rate. I bet the graph, based on percentage/income=graduation rate, would look a lot more like the sheer face of mount Everest, than a gentle hill in central park. additionally, there's the quality of education. Unemployment us up from where it was five years ago but people in the middle and below are actually earning less. And many of those jobs are actually part time or service industry jobs. Does that mean that we're in a really healthy economy that every body is working and earning a decent wage? Definitely not. Same goes for education. If a person in the top 10% goes to Yale, and the person in the bottom 10% goes to a community college/vocation school and doesn't even finish, does that mean they are getting an equal education or even an equal chance to succeed? Absolutely not. Money pays for education. the more you have (sometimes, irregardless of grades) the more likely you are to attend and finish college. Finishing, that's the real graph they should illustrate.
4
See, when you're in your late twenties and still dating, the 2nd or 3rd question is always, "what do you do?" or "where did you go to school?"
Women or men who work hard want to vet out others who work hard and can provide an advantage to their offspring. This isn't rocket science: people want their equals, and that goes for poor, middle class and rich. What you see here is the result of the dating and vetting process.
Women or men who work hard want to vet out others who work hard and can provide an advantage to their offspring. This isn't rocket science: people want their equals, and that goes for poor, middle class and rich. What you see here is the result of the dating and vetting process.
3
It used to be that executives married their secretaries and doctors their nurses but today executives marry other executives and doctors other doctors.
2
The follow-on analysis in the article misstates the findings of the original study (by Raj Chetty, et al.), reporting that the relationship between parent-income rank and teen pregnancy is linear. The original study does not address this relationship. Rather, it investigates the relationship between parent-income and TEENAGE BIRTH, an altogether different variable.
1
This chart shows the likelihood of enrolling in college. I bet the chart looks different if we were analyzing the chances of finishing college... a big difference to consider for upward mobility.
1
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Shouldn't colleges accept part of the blame for that situation?
Shouldn't colleges accept part of the blame for that situation?
1
it is not all about the money and there are any number of covariates to explain a greater proportion of the result. Do the poorest get the same educational opportunity as the richest? If you are wealthy, it is easier to move to a good school district. My graduate degrees were the first of any degree in our family and luckily, I grew up on the edge, but still inside, a very good upper middle class school district where some 75% went on to college and most of them graduated college even though our family was in the bottom 20%. What about the parental support and encouragement for educational attainment? My parents knew education was the way out. Since then, I have taught at colleges where the children from poorest families (particularly the girls) are not encouraged but actively discouraged from seeking more education (too uppity or too good for us is the language I have heard when their parents deigned to come around). What about the increase in assortative mating? What about role models? My high school was filled with role models of upper class whites where almost every child and the teachers expected you to go on to college and encouraged it. In the end, money talks but there are other hurdles for us poor folk to overcome to get to and stay in college to graduate.
5
As usual, this op-ed completely ignores what every social scientist worthy of the name knows: that many if not most of the cognitive and social traits involved in success both in careers and in school are substantially hereditary.
A paper that just hit the presses in Nature shows just how pervasive heritability is for cognitive/behavioral traits and others. It summarizes in a meta-analysis the results across over 14,000,000 twin pairs and 2,700 studies. One overarching conclusion: the traits in question average 49% heritability.
How anyone in the social sciences can ignore such an overwhelming result is a matter future, enlightened scientists and philosophers will find a fascinating topic in its own right.
Here's a link to that study:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZaC1rNks5ajQ3VkE/view?usp=sh...
A paper that just hit the presses in Nature shows just how pervasive heritability is for cognitive/behavioral traits and others. It summarizes in a meta-analysis the results across over 14,000,000 twin pairs and 2,700 studies. One overarching conclusion: the traits in question average 49% heritability.
How anyone in the social sciences can ignore such an overwhelming result is a matter future, enlightened scientists and philosophers will find a fascinating topic in its own right.
Here's a link to that study:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3c4TxciNeJZaC1rNks5ajQ3VkE/view?usp=sh...
6
Sure. But these studies do not - can not - directly take into account the contribution of epigenetics to that 49%. And even to the extent that they are valid, they necessarily posit that 51% of the expression of these traits is NOT heritable. That, incidentally, implies that much of the effect of the desired heritable contribution is lost because of direct environmental as well as epigenetic factors. I suspect that the editors of Nature notice such things - I know that I try to in the journals that I review for.
The point is that a whole lot of both opportunity and productivity are lost because of socioeconomic obstacles. We must do better.
The point is that a whole lot of both opportunity and productivity are lost because of socioeconomic obstacles. We must do better.
2
Here's another link describing the study which does a pretty good job of making its importance accessible to the intelligent layperson:
http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2015/05/gone-with-wind.html
http://drjamesthompson.blogspot.com/2015/05/gone-with-wind.html
It seems like you're failing to realize the effect of poverty and stress on brain development for children. Children born to poverty have more cortizol in their systems during critical stages of development.
I guarantee if you suddenly took all the comforts and put rich families into severe poverty, it would take a few generations, but the push for education would decrease.
Like studies with rats where you give them an opportunity to get out of a tank of water, they'll keep trying. If you take away all hope, they drown quickly. We've taken away most of the rungs of the economic ladder for the poor. Thus, you don't have the jobs that they can rise up and make better wages.
This discourages people from trying and the next generation is not encouraged to try because of the discouragement of the previous generations.
I guarantee if you suddenly took all the comforts and put rich families into severe poverty, it would take a few generations, but the push for education would decrease.
Like studies with rats where you give them an opportunity to get out of a tank of water, they'll keep trying. If you take away all hope, they drown quickly. We've taken away most of the rungs of the economic ladder for the poor. Thus, you don't have the jobs that they can rise up and make better wages.
This discourages people from trying and the next generation is not encouraged to try because of the discouragement of the previous generations.
2
interesting way of collecting preference data.
1
If the poor do not change their cultural values and work ethic how can their kids succeed? When you have Asian immigrant families who cannot speak English yet their children attend the finest Universities (even while being discriminated by affirmative action quotas) you realize it is not money but cultural attitudes which motivate their kids to succeed. All the money in the world is not going to change the outcome for kids from poorly performing ethnic groups unless they start to mimic the qualities of these high-achieving groups.
17
Oh, it's about class and race. A lower economic White student has the least chance even if his/her parents are intelligent, hard-working and encouraging.
1
Please don't use Asian immigrant families to bash other ethnic/racial groups for systemic problems that relegate them to poor schools and dangerous neighborhoods with few job prospects. I'm sure there are Asian immigrants who'd agree with you, but I'm one Asian immigrant who resents that kind of divisiveness. It's just another way to blame and discriminate against the poor.
5
SLK, the point Smith makes is still valid as much as you would like to avoid it. It never has ceased to amaze me how many Asian families I knew in the 1960s or 1970s, immigrants who could not speak a word of english and who lived in as much poverty as many blacks for example, whose children went on to obtain top notch educations. Having a decent respect for education, as opposed to deriding it, is important. Culture does play a role, as much as it is not "PC" to talk about it. Those from cultures that value education, work ethic and perseverance have an advantage over those that don't.
2
I think this was a great exercise and I was surprised as well, given how much we, with a big joint income, feel we have to save for college for our one child. But I would like to point out that the kids born in the early 80s probably enrolled in college sometime between 1998-2003. At my state's big university, total in-state fees and tuition for the 1998-1999 school year were $3,495, or 7.85% of the 1998 state median income ($44,514) and in 2014-2015 it was $12,395, or 21.1% of the 2014 state median income ($58,686), and the financial aid scene has changed a lot. I would like to see what this looks like for kids born in the mid to late 90's. They should do a follow up study.
3
And the lion is still king of the jungle.
There's a very similar relationship between SAT scores and parents' income. I'd like to see the Times invite readers to do more graph-making and predicting: It encourages readers to think about the relationships along the entire continuum, rather than just thinking about the average. Averages are usually all that's reported, but they don't tell much of a story. Graphs tell a much more informed story. Drawing these lines is a good way to learn about math, as well as the phenomena represented!
1
What do you mean by college? Do you include the for-profit schools that charge exorbitant tuition (the medical assistant program at for-profit Healt College in Fresno, CA, costs $22,275 - a similar program at Fresno City College is $1,650). If you're including those places, students would be better off to
stay clear of them. 96% of students who graduate leave usually owing twice the debt of students from traditional colleges, according to "Subprime Students: How For-Profit Universities Make a Killing by Exploiting College Dreams," in Mother Jones, Sept 23, 2014.
Also we need to think about the environment students come from. We're all impressed with the Asians who have achieved so much. They've been helped by a culture that celebrates learning. Others are not so fortunate. I remember reading in the New Yorker a while back about two Hispanic students who were struggling to stay in school and do well, and who were being pressured by their families to quit and help support their parents. These students needed extra help and encouragement. So it's not enough to think in terms of famiily income, "rich" and "poor." The whole situation is more complex than that.
stay clear of them. 96% of students who graduate leave usually owing twice the debt of students from traditional colleges, according to "Subprime Students: How For-Profit Universities Make a Killing by Exploiting College Dreams," in Mother Jones, Sept 23, 2014.
Also we need to think about the environment students come from. We're all impressed with the Asians who have achieved so much. They've been helped by a culture that celebrates learning. Others are not so fortunate. I remember reading in the New Yorker a while back about two Hispanic students who were struggling to stay in school and do well, and who were being pressured by their families to quit and help support their parents. These students needed extra help and encouragement. So it's not enough to think in terms of famiily income, "rich" and "poor." The whole situation is more complex than that.
6
Ugh! This whole "smarter people make more money" that I'm reading over and over in the comments is SO off, so disheartening, so shortsighted and narrow (and it's wrong; I know many brilliant people who have deliberately chosen against the big money paths available to them). Earning money in our society also has to do with values and interests. There are many many professions in this society that require high intelligence but don't make you rich. There are also people who make the choice that money is not the most important thing to chase after in life. I would argue that people focused on money make more money. And sadly, with the ever-disappearing middle-class in this country, people focused on family, and happiness, tend to make less money.
4
I agree with your sentiments, but I think you miss the point. This is about opportunity - or the lack thereof. College gives people the option to make life choices. This option is far less available to those who do not go to college - they are more likely to be pushed around and to be forced to accept whatever they encounter. Wealthy origins and the privileges they provide make college more available.
As one with multiple degrees and a lifetime in professional academics, I can tell you it all has little to do with being smart. As one who has chosen to make far less than was possible in my profession, I know that happiness and wealth (beyond what is needed to feel secure) are not correlated. Nor are wealth and intelligence, or wealth and merit in general (sorry, Mr. Calvin). But, wealth sure as heck correlates with opportunity, and college is used to mediate this relationship. Too bad for us all.
As one with multiple degrees and a lifetime in professional academics, I can tell you it all has little to do with being smart. As one who has chosen to make far less than was possible in my profession, I know that happiness and wealth (beyond what is needed to feel secure) are not correlated. Nor are wealth and intelligence, or wealth and merit in general (sorry, Mr. Calvin). But, wealth sure as heck correlates with opportunity, and college is used to mediate this relationship. Too bad for us all.
7
marie,
You bring up anecdotes of "you know someone", which is a key red flag that your analysis is likely incorrect. Only by looking at the key causative factors (parents emphasis on education, parents IQ which is hereditary) will you be able to predict the child's likelihood of going to college. The income of the parents is an effect of their IQ and their emphasis on education, not a cause of how likely their children are to go to college.
You bring up anecdotes of "you know someone", which is a key red flag that your analysis is likely incorrect. Only by looking at the key causative factors (parents emphasis on education, parents IQ which is hereditary) will you be able to predict the child's likelihood of going to college. The income of the parents is an effect of their IQ and their emphasis on education, not a cause of how likely their children are to go to college.
1
Oh good god, are you all such math incompetents, including the author? Of course the resulting line is linear, since the income axis is exponential. Plot it against actual income, and you'll see the sort of S-shaped curve everyone draws, because our gut instincts are in fact correct: when plotted against actual income, relatively few poor kids attend college (and, I agree with the other commenters, at lower incomes "attend" means something very different than at upper incomes--at low incomes, "attend" means scrape together a couple of quarters or semesters before dropping out, saddled with debt, but I digress). Mid-income sees steep upswing in college attendance, which levels off at the very top.
In other words, yes, it's always fascinating when an ACTUAL linear relationship emerges from complex data. But this one is an artifact of the hidden logarithmic nature of the data mapped on the X-axis. Remember calculus, people, derivatives? x-squared derives to 2x? That's what's going on here. Someone genuinely skilled at high-school math, please help us out!
And, let's not forget that income gets mapped in deciles because you would need a roll of paper the length of Manhattan to capture the real spread between the bottom and the tippy top, since, to paraphrase the old lady, "Young man, it's fractal, all the way up!"
In other words, yes, it's always fascinating when an ACTUAL linear relationship emerges from complex data. But this one is an artifact of the hidden logarithmic nature of the data mapped on the X-axis. Remember calculus, people, derivatives? x-squared derives to 2x? That's what's going on here. Someone genuinely skilled at high-school math, please help us out!
And, let's not forget that income gets mapped in deciles because you would need a roll of paper the length of Manhattan to capture the real spread between the bottom and the tippy top, since, to paraphrase the old lady, "Young man, it's fractal, all the way up!"
36
I would expect that the most natural way of comparing income statistics to academic success would be to compare percentiles, as does this graph. If anything, it is an indictment of our economic structure that linear changes in ability should result in nearly exponential differences in income.
Thank you so much!
I'll read all axes more carefully from now on.
Valuable lesson for teachers to use in class: NY Times, don't remove this article, ever. It's a great teaching point.
I'll read all axes more carefully from now on.
Valuable lesson for teachers to use in class: NY Times, don't remove this article, ever. It's a great teaching point.
1
But the authors claim to be surprised that the correlation is linear. They shouldn't be surprised--it would swoop in the way most people expect, if the X-axis weren't artificially compressed.
The thing that I do not understand is why we are always using college education as a means of determining future success and not just having a life that is better than the generation before. I am the third generation of my family here in the US. My great grandparents and grandparents worked blue collar jobs or owned small businesses. Each generation worked toward improving the lives of the next generation. My sister and I are the first generation to go to college and graduate school and that would probably be the expectation of our children.
So, the way I see it, it took three generations for my family to be successful in college. With that in mind, why don't we focus on how we can simply improve lives from one generation to the next in the hope that future generations will be successful in college? Maybe we could encourage the current generation to take up a trade and provide a solid foundation for their children so that they could possibly go to college. Why does it have to be all or nothing. I keep hearing about how our society needs to think about our future generations, but we also need individuals to think about how they can make the lives of their own children better, even if it is just one step above where they are now. It takes time...
So, the way I see it, it took three generations for my family to be successful in college. With that in mind, why don't we focus on how we can simply improve lives from one generation to the next in the hope that future generations will be successful in college? Maybe we could encourage the current generation to take up a trade and provide a solid foundation for their children so that they could possibly go to college. Why does it have to be all or nothing. I keep hearing about how our society needs to think about our future generations, but we also need individuals to think about how they can make the lives of their own children better, even if it is just one step above where they are now. It takes time...
3
I agree with you, but here's the problem. In our society, college gives people the option to make life choices. This option is far less available to those who do not go to college - they are more likely to be pushed around and to be forced to accept whatever they encounter. Wealthy origins and the privileges they provide make college more available.
Wealth sure as heck correlates with opportunity, like it or not (and I don't), and college is used to mediate this relationship. Too bad for us all. More people should learn a trade (irrespective of how much formal education they have), and they should be secure in practicing it. Such people used to form what was called the middle class.
Wealth sure as heck correlates with opportunity, like it or not (and I don't), and college is used to mediate this relationship. Too bad for us all. More people should learn a trade (irrespective of how much formal education they have), and they should be secure in practicing it. Such people used to form what was called the middle class.
1
What's impressive about this is not the straight line correlation but the resistance in reader comments to its implications for cherished American myths, by questioning the data, citing irrelevant anecdotal counter-examples, or out and out legitimating it as the unavoidable, natural consequence of the inherent superiority of rich people's genetic intelligence, culture, or something like moral will. Educational opportunity plays a key part, a heroic part, on stage, in our theater of belief in American meritocracy and economic mobility. To see educational attainment so linearly reduced to yet another correlate of inherited wealth and privilege is disconcerting. Denial is a powerful force, perpetuating both American ideology and the class-based society it begs us to accept as something, almost anything, other than what it is.
8
Ibarguen,
You missed the key points of the comments: Correlation does not equal causation. The primary causative factor is having a two parent household that values education. This emphasis on education is most likely what allowed the parents to be become financially successful.
You missed the key points of the comments: Correlation does not equal causation. The primary causative factor is having a two parent household that values education. This emphasis on education is most likely what allowed the parents to be become financially successful.
2
Dream on. The American Dream, that is. Not surprisingly, there's an extensive intellectual, academic apparatus dedicated to finding ideologically acceptable "causes" for this and other American myth threatening "correlations." With the best of efforts, they have a hard time at it. If you delve into the vast literature, it's not at all as simple as "having a two parent household that values education." But say we go there. What, pray tell, do you believe to be the "causes" of "having a two parent household that values education"? No anecdotes please.
1
People really don't want to live hunger games, even while they want to enjoy the fruits of their labors....
Dear NYT: Thank you for continuing to innovate -- please give us more interactive features like this!
7
This fails to account for several issues, well noted below, that have as great or greater effect on attendance rates. Next, try overlaying a chart that shows the parent's rates and level of education; not all parents with PhDs are high earners, but a majority clearly value and emphasize education. Then add in a graph showing completion rates, which is significantly lower. Finally have we considered how many went to low-value for-profit schools and graduated with few prospects? Income level is not the be all end all of college analysis.
1
I believe regardless of income status, the driving force for education is the importance of education that parents instilled in their children since they were very young. I am a refugee who came from Asia with my parents at age 12. They worked in sweat shops and manual labors for years, but I graduated top honors and made it all the way through professional school, of course, with a little over 100,000 dollars loans, but that was an investment worth making. It's not such a big loans when you make that much with your degree each year.
Low income students qualify for many loans and financial aids as long as you have the grade, no excuses. There is always a way, this is America after all. I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to at least try and made it this far, would not have happened where I was born, no loans or aids there, that is where income truly dictates one's education.
So yes, money from parents help, but one's got to study first.
I went to public school, public undergraduate and graduate school all the way.
Low income students qualify for many loans and financial aids as long as you have the grade, no excuses. There is always a way, this is America after all. I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to at least try and made it this far, would not have happened where I was born, no loans or aids there, that is where income truly dictates one's education.
So yes, money from parents help, but one's got to study first.
I went to public school, public undergraduate and graduate school all the way.
14
I am guessing this graph works because high income families have more educated parents. Educated parents or parents that stress education I suspect is a bigger driver to college achievement than income. There are to many examples of poor immigrants who succeed. In NJ we have transferred billions over a long period from the wealthier subs to the inner city with no positiove results.
10
The real question is who's kids finish college not who starts.
9
Yeah, but how many students from low-income families FINISH? That's what I would like to know. And how much debt to they finish with? A lot of low-income students attend college, but I've seen first hand how many drop out or don't finish because they're bogged down in remedial courses (after years of unequal education), debt, lack of resources and support system that their more affluent counterparts have. In addition, they may not see value in graduation with the unemployment rate for college grads so high, especially for lower-income grads.
4
I'm reading lots of statements in these comments that hold sweeping negative generalizations about poor people and their parenting. Very sad to see. Obviously opportunities are not equal among the classes, and poor parents, who often lack the resources, i.e. time and money, to give their children the same opportunities that the rich have, know this. It's not that poor parents don't know better, or wish better for their children. It's simply that economic demands prevent them from giving their kids all the things rich kids have.
7
I love this "you draw it" exercise. It encourages you to think about the issues in general as well as the specific relationship between wealth and higher ed. More of these, please!
8
"Those poor people just have to work harder, like me!"
"Hey Bob, my kid needs a job."
"No problem Jim, there's a corner office with his name on it."
There's also the problem of unpaid internships: you have to be rich to accept this, as normal people need to pay bills. But if unpaid internships get you a fast track in the company, it's another way rich kids have it easy. Of course, they or their parents will bloviate how they "worked many hours a week, for free! Hard work for little income pays off!" proving how they just do not get it.
Unpaid internships need to be outlawed as the abuse of social inequality that they are.
"Hey Bob, my kid needs a job."
"No problem Jim, there's a corner office with his name on it."
There's also the problem of unpaid internships: you have to be rich to accept this, as normal people need to pay bills. But if unpaid internships get you a fast track in the company, it's another way rich kids have it easy. Of course, they or their parents will bloviate how they "worked many hours a week, for free! Hard work for little income pays off!" proving how they just do not get it.
Unpaid internships need to be outlawed as the abuse of social inequality that they are.
13
This articles biggest failing is it's implication that income has a causal relationship with a child's chances of going to college. There seems to be a clear correlation, however there are almost certainly other influencing factors.
3
The primary causal factor is a supportive (usually two parent) family that values education. This type of family tends to have higher income than average and higher IQs than average.
I have a hard time believing in a flat curve. Mine was asymptotic at the top and a flat slope upward from the bottom. Based on experience, I find that really poor people, below 30%, don't have time for their kids, don't see a value in education and don't have the resources.
As for the flat scale for the rich is that why bother. If dad has 100 million why go to college?
As for the flat scale for the rich is that why bother. If dad has 100 million why go to college?
3
No one worth $100 million would not care whether their kids went to college unless they were a rock star, actor or something else that required little academic achievement to succeed. None.
1
Let's address the elephant in the room.
Most folks that earn more money did not win some mysterious and secret lottery - they are smarter and more able than the average parent.
They typically marry a smarter than average person.
Guess what - they produce smarter than average kids.
You can whine all you want about SAT prep - about class size - about fancy lacrosse fields...
It is about two things: genetic smarts and an ethos regarding the importance of education
Most folks that earn more money did not win some mysterious and secret lottery - they are smarter and more able than the average parent.
They typically marry a smarter than average person.
Guess what - they produce smarter than average kids.
You can whine all you want about SAT prep - about class size - about fancy lacrosse fields...
It is about two things: genetic smarts and an ethos regarding the importance of education
27
Steve:
I'm not a big proponent of DNA as the reason why some are smarter than others. Yes, individuals do have some innate predispositions for academic, verbal, spatial, musical, and athletic abilities than others, but when it comes to general brain capacities, I would say most humans are inherently equal. It is the parental support, schools, and hard effort of the individual which makes the biggest difference.
I'm not a big proponent of DNA as the reason why some are smarter than others. Yes, individuals do have some innate predispositions for academic, verbal, spatial, musical, and athletic abilities than others, but when it comes to general brain capacities, I would say most humans are inherently equal. It is the parental support, schools, and hard effort of the individual which makes the biggest difference.
Are you serious? How insular.
I worked as a teacher with plenty of smart students who came from meager backgrounds. On many occasions, they destroyed your well-off, smart kids through brains and hard work.
Not surprisingly, they had to make tough choices when it came to pursuing their dreams vs. staying put to help their families, thereby settling for so-called lesser institutions of higher learning -- and all the doors those open through name and connections.
I worked as a teacher with plenty of smart students who came from meager backgrounds. On many occasions, they destroyed your well-off, smart kids through brains and hard work.
Not surprisingly, they had to make tough choices when it came to pursuing their dreams vs. staying put to help their families, thereby settling for so-called lesser institutions of higher learning -- and all the doors those open through name and connections.
8
Great point, although once someone is in the ranks of the well-off they can then compound their advantage because they have time and money to foster their kids' growth. They can afford a house where the best schools are, they have the free time to encourage their children's growth, and a host of other factors that an equally smart but poor child will not get. This makes it harder for smart children in poorer families to get ahead and easier for children of well-off parents to stay in the top rank.
5
Those at the top always want think that they got there only by merit.
40
Bunch of Bounderbys.
And those at the bottom always want to think that they got there because of "the man".
2
Great exercise. Yes our government has "been making college affordable" for over fifty years now, so one could only expect that its rate of tuition inflation far exceeds the CPI. Only medical care, another government regulated and administered market, is close in terms of price rise over that time period. NYT probably "wants government to do more" which of course is the exact opposite of what it should do, which is to stop all subsidized loans. Pretty soon the colleges would see the need to offer some value, since their students and their families would no longer be paying with funny money that the government guarantees.
3
My college tuition in the fifties was about $800 for the year, including books. I lived at home and drove or took a bus to school. My parents paid all the bills. Nothing glamorous about it.
A high-status-fun-school it was not. But it worked. The trick getting started in life is to have good parents and be satisfied with what you can get.
A high-status-fun-school it was not. But it worked. The trick getting started in life is to have good parents and be satisfied with what you can get.
7
Does the trick also include having 1950s-era tuition?
Many Asian kids whose parents came to the US as dishwashers, waitresses, nail salon, laundry and restaurant operators working longs hours 7 days a week, are able to excel at schools, colleges, and careers!
They succeeded despite lacking rich parents!
They must not have read these economist papers!
They succeeded despite lacking rich parents!
They must not have read these economist papers!
18
I am so tired of hearing about how smart these Asian kids are! Being good in school often doesn't translate to being successful. How many stupid doctors and lawyers have you met?
1
The average mildly involved parents probably stayed in Asia.
1
Did you know that Confucius was pretty much a failure in terms of selling his political and philosophical smarts to various princes and dukes BCE in China. But he never gave up trying.
When is it going to dawn on people that not everyone needs to go to college?
4
When all high-school graduates are eagerly sought for jobs with on-the-job training, mentoring and career prospects.
1
I guess I beat the odds, then. My teamster father did not graduate from high school, we had little money, and nearly nobody in my family attended college. However, I did get a Master's Degree from a Big Ten school and was a successful corporate economist for thirty-three years. In that time, I published nineteen law journal articles and a small handful of refereed academic journal articles during my corporate career.
Thus, I had no role models, but the difference was a good public school system. They taught us mathematics, languages, writing, all the things I needed for college-level study. The state college I attended cost $492 per semester for commuters, plus book purchases. If you worked and studied hard, you got ahead back then.
When I was in the seventh grade (in 1965), my school staged an intervention with "at risk" kids. They claimed my IQ was "high" but my performance was poor, so they took me to four local colleges so I could see what college life was like. I believe it made a difference for me. Otherwise, how would I have seen any college campus or talked to any college students? My odds of doing so were low.
Thus, I had no role models, but the difference was a good public school system. They taught us mathematics, languages, writing, all the things I needed for college-level study. The state college I attended cost $492 per semester for commuters, plus book purchases. If you worked and studied hard, you got ahead back then.
When I was in the seventh grade (in 1965), my school staged an intervention with "at risk" kids. They claimed my IQ was "high" but my performance was poor, so they took me to four local colleges so I could see what college life was like. I believe it made a difference for me. Otherwise, how would I have seen any college campus or talked to any college students? My odds of doing so were low.
8
I came from a backward school and fought to get ahead. I entered my profession determined to out-work and out-think my opposition, which I did. And, yet, while prized in the work-place I have little to show for it. The rich are well-connected. They aren't smarter than us they are just better positioned.
9
I worry about data-based features like this for several reasons. First, and foremost, though people might be surprised by statistical realities, aggregate numbers usually reflect an oversimplification of issues, leading to faulty interpretations. Second, does this kind of computer number crunching drain reporting power from more labor intensive investigation?
This was a great interactive article, very clever on the part of the authors. By engaging me with the request that I express my opinion first, the rest of the article became more interesting and more fun to follow. Nice job!
6
More money buys more lessons, extra attention, teachers with higher graduate degrees, elite sports facilities, exposure to high culture, safer neighborhoods, overseas trips, and many more opportunities. I would say, without all the social science data, that, yes, wealth always affords greater college opportunities than those without.
10
Wealth always affords greater opportunities period.
4
Tolstoy wrote “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The famous adage is exaggerated, but affluent American families are generally affluent because both parents prepared themselves for success and made smart lifestyle choices, including the choice of mates. They passed these traits on to their children. I was a poor kid who had no trouble getting into college because my high test scores offset my weak grade point average. The rich or affluent kids I went to school were far more conscientious students than those of us from lower-income families and broken homes. They picked these traits up from their parents. They didn't get into college because of their parent's checkbook. They actually did the coursework. They worked harder.
21
William, that's probably true for the middle but less true about the ends of the curves. Society lives or dies by its industrious middle class. No revolution actually succeeds until the middle class becomes discontented. That is where we are today.
The "Top one Percent" we hear so much about is just one percent of the population. There are not enough of them to matter when it comes to college admissions. By affluent. I'm think of students whose parents are both college graduates. For example, one is a engineer and the other is a school teachers. However, the best students I knew had parents who were both teachers.
Why would anyone be surprised by the graph? Here are some facts that may be discomforting for some, certainly not all, NYT readers:
1) The US is a meritocracy
2) successful people who are also parents tend to pass traits that made/make them successful to their children
3) many of these traits improve the odds of going to college, including:
a) staying in school and graduating high school
b) doing well in school
c) not getting pregnant as a teen
d) avoiding criminal behavior
4) The likelihood of behavioral traits that improve ones chances of going to college are positively correlated with income (see #1 above)
5) the likelihood of behavioral traits that decrease ones chances of going to college are negatively correlated with income (see #1 above)
Not Politically Correct, but the truth often isn't.
1) The US is a meritocracy
2) successful people who are also parents tend to pass traits that made/make them successful to their children
3) many of these traits improve the odds of going to college, including:
a) staying in school and graduating high school
b) doing well in school
c) not getting pregnant as a teen
d) avoiding criminal behavior
4) The likelihood of behavioral traits that improve ones chances of going to college are positively correlated with income (see #1 above)
5) the likelihood of behavioral traits that decrease ones chances of going to college are negatively correlated with income (see #1 above)
Not Politically Correct, but the truth often isn't.
31
Besides not being politically correct (which in itself does not mean everything you say is true), it is simply bizarre that you do not include whether people can afford to go as a criteria.
I guess you think that moral behavior is always rewarded economically, but it is not. Not Ayn Randian, but the truth often isn't.
I guess you think that moral behavior is always rewarded economically, but it is not. Not Ayn Randian, but the truth often isn't.
7
Riiight, the US is a perfect meritocracy, and universities only consider grades and glee club membership. Also, capitalism is a perfect market with no graft or corruption!
After you wipe away the tears of laughter, try reading Daniel Golden's "The Price of Admission" or see this article in The American Conservative:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-mer...
to understand just how little role "merit" plays in college admissions.
After you wipe away the tears of laughter, try reading Daniel Golden's "The Price of Admission" or see this article in The American Conservative:
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-american-mer...
to understand just how little role "merit" plays in college admissions.
As poor working class I earned my way to college by scholarships but I''ve seen how the police are used to control the lower classes. I think you should broaden your horizons.
This is an interesting chart that gets a person thinking about inequality and the effect on college chances. However, it must be said that attending college is certainly different than GRADUATING from college. I would love to see that chart, as it would be the better predictor of future success.
20
This article completely ignores the fact that income and intelligence are correlated, thereby explaining part of the reason why higher income groups attend college at a higher rate. How did the author miss something so basic?
7
Higher income is not correlated to higher "intelligence," but to higher skills developed in early life. Higher income children are read to more often, are better nourished, and are more likely to have a stable home environment, all of which contribute to earlier speech/language development, socialization, etc. This is not "intelligence."
12
Wow. Stunning classism. Not to mention just erroneous. Income and intelligence ARE NOT correlated. Just think of all the people from modest backgrounds who went on to achieve incredible things and often make plenty of money. It's so common we have an oft-cited name for it in our society: 'rags to riches' stories. Here are a few examples: Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Jack Welch, but the list is much longer. Sad that you likely judge peoples' intelligence based on their income. Not exactly the American way.
1
I'm a profession social scientist (political science professor) who works with this sort of data regularly.
It is UNDENIABLY CORRECT that income is correlated with many things, including education, where one lives, voter turnout, etc. I have never studied this, but I would not be at ll surprised if income is correlated with some measures of "intelligence" like performance on standardized tests like the SAT or various IQ tests.
But (and this is a bromide that we repeat so much it loses meaning) correlation is NOT causation. Income may well be the EFFECT of intelligence, not its cause, or something else entirely could drive both or neither of them.
It is UNDENIABLY CORRECT that income is correlated with many things, including education, where one lives, voter turnout, etc. I have never studied this, but I would not be at ll surprised if income is correlated with some measures of "intelligence" like performance on standardized tests like the SAT or various IQ tests.
But (and this is a bromide that we repeat so much it loses meaning) correlation is NOT causation. Income may well be the EFFECT of intelligence, not its cause, or something else entirely could drive both or neither of them.
What the article does *not* tell us is the time over which family income is measured. A family whose income fluctuates widely may give children different expectations and different life-style than one with a stable or rising income.
Again family break-up with high-school senior children staying with one parent: household income suddenly lowered... etc etc
Again family break-up with high-school senior children staying with one parent: household income suddenly lowered... etc etc
1
(1) If only 25% of the cohort in the 0-10% income percentile go to college, they are already in a sense exceptional (1 in 4).
(2) The hypothesis that this is a correlation only, the real causation is IQ --> income; IQ --> college attendance can be tested by e.g., drawing the same curve for Germany where college is now free.
(2) The hypothesis that this is a correlation only, the real causation is IQ --> income; IQ --> college attendance can be tested by e.g., drawing the same curve for Germany where college is now free.
3
So, the more money you have, the more likely your children are to go to college. And better colleges. And are more likely to graduate.
This is not surprising.
I'd like to see how the U.S. compares to other advanced countries.
How much debt to students from other countries graduate with compared to the U.S.
What percentage of college graduates in other countries get decent paying jobs in their fields of study after they graduate compared to the U.S.?
How do those who don't go to college in other countries compare to those who don't in the U.S.?
How can we be considered the land of opportunity, how can we say everyone has a chance to get ahead in America, when these statistics show that is obviously not true (maybe it was more true in the past).
Good research, especially the nuances - such as how teen pregnancy affects one's life outcome.
Now what is our country going to do with this information?
This is not surprising.
I'd like to see how the U.S. compares to other advanced countries.
How much debt to students from other countries graduate with compared to the U.S.
What percentage of college graduates in other countries get decent paying jobs in their fields of study after they graduate compared to the U.S.?
How do those who don't go to college in other countries compare to those who don't in the U.S.?
How can we be considered the land of opportunity, how can we say everyone has a chance to get ahead in America, when these statistics show that is obviously not true (maybe it was more true in the past).
Good research, especially the nuances - such as how teen pregnancy affects one's life outcome.
Now what is our country going to do with this information?
4
You really have to control for ability (say, SAT scores) to isolate the the affect of income on education.
It's no secret that more able (and thus higher earning) adults produce more able offspring.
It's no secret that more able (and thus higher earning) adults produce more able offspring.
4
Excellent feature, congratulations, NYT, let's have more of these, thank you!
4
I drew a line that flattened out as it moved to the right (higher income) because I did not read well enough, so did not think about income percentile. Instead, I plotted (roughly correctly above the 50% point) what I thought happened per dollar of additional income. I suspect that is what many people do.
On the surface the data is suspect and needs close academic peer review before being widely dispersed by the NYT. Very little in nature, particularly in the social sciences, graphs to a straight line. In almost all instances of socio-economic behavior the "law" of diminishing marginal returns show itself.
1
What I find really interesting about this data is the dose-response relationship. That someone with parental income @ 10% is more likely to go to college than @ 9%. Reminds me of the Whitehall studies and the social determinants of health in which a similar gradient was found-- basically, your boss is healthier than you and you are healthier than the guy 1 rank below you. For me, this points to the importance of family/parental characteristics more so than access to resources. People with "poor" income <20th group have access to similar resources, same with those in the middle, and likely among the top 5%. If it was only about access to resources the shape of the curve would be stepped. I think teachers see this first hand. Solution...wish I had one.
1
Pell Grants are free and student loans are available.
ANYONE can go to college.
The crux of the issue is people feel that the necessary sacrifice and effort is too much for them.
Let's hear all the excuses, now.
ANYONE can go to college.
The crux of the issue is people feel that the necessary sacrifice and effort is too much for them.
Let's hear all the excuses, now.
4
Although these grants are available, students must provide parents financial information via a fafsa submission and there are many students in the poverty line who have been abandoned by their parents financially. Children of divorce often face these problems too. When parents won't supply these financial documents or backup information to verify income level, the student has no recourse but to take out student loans
7
Not true all all. Pell Grants and other fed loans do not cover the full tuition (not mentioning room and board, etc).
9
You should do more research before you say free and available. It is not true for anyone. See Nancy's note.
5
Some people run faster than others. Some are natural artists.
No doubt that rich folk take more interest in Junior's future.
No doubt that rich folk take more interest in Junior's future.
1
The framers of our Constitution rejected royalty and the idea of noble birth. Just over 200 years later, our nation has decided that government of by and for the rich is the way to go!
Yes, Barack Obama attended Occidental, Columbia and Harvard as do about 3% of the lowest income people (I learned from this graph). He is an exception in an enormous number of ways.
But, let's all celebrate the exceptions, while we accept rule by the new American nobility and royalty!
It's ironic that this is *not* the way they are providing higher education in Europe.
But, we are *exceptional* in our rejection of the framers' intents!
Yes, Barack Obama attended Occidental, Columbia and Harvard as do about 3% of the lowest income people (I learned from this graph). He is an exception in an enormous number of ways.
But, let's all celebrate the exceptions, while we accept rule by the new American nobility and royalty!
It's ironic that this is *not* the way they are providing higher education in Europe.
But, we are *exceptional* in our rejection of the framers' intents!
7
Obama did not grow up in a poor family. His mother was a Ph.D. His grandparents sent him to a well regarded prep school in Hawaii called Punahou School. I think the high school has more influence on a student's success later in life than the college they attend.
5
Most of the framers pf our constitution were rich white men who owned
large plantations and owned many slaves.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/15/10-richest-presi...
large plantations and owned many slaves.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/02/15/10-richest-presi...
Going to college is over-rated. The school you get your BA or BS from is just the start of a never ending rat race. If your parents have lots of money, you can go next to a not-a-top-25 law or business school and end up with a very successful career and lots of money. The Chinese call it "connections," Americans call it "old boy's network, " the rest of the world call it "birthright." Your below 50%ile populace call it "corruption."
2
You don't have to go to a top business school or law school to make a good income and be successful. Many attend plain jane state law schools and become very successful and make lots of money.
3
And what percentage of these student complete college in the allotted 4 years?
Parents have to be vigilant about that -- to graduate in 4 years your child needs to be completing at least 15 credits with a passing grade every semester to graduate on time. If they drop, withdraw or fail a course they should take it as a summer courses at a local community college to make up the time lost, and transfer the credits back to their home school. Better yet - have them start their first two years at the community college and save yourself a fortune in tuition!
1
It took me 12 years at night, while working full-time. What's it to you?
14
Obviously money sends people to college, but maybe it's something about the family that drives both college attendance and income.
That being said, colleges need to be fined and regulated for the same fraud that the big banks do. There is no reason we have soaring edifices to hedonism and tuition rising faster than inflation.
That being said, colleges need to be fined and regulated for the same fraud that the big banks do. There is no reason we have soaring edifices to hedonism and tuition rising faster than inflation.
4
So the government steps in with student loans, breaking the relationship between customer (the student) and seller (the university). Its known that 3d party payment drives up prices, since the customer is no longer sensitive to the price. So now that government has screwed up college tuition you propose that it step in again and regulate tuition prices. Interesting.
2
Many readers would not want to consider the possibilities that:
1. Intelligence might be partially hereditary.
2. Smarter people earn more (all other things equal).
3. Smarter kids are more likely to go to college and finish college.
4. Some of the correlation might not be related to income, but to intelligence.
1. Intelligence might be partially hereditary.
2. Smarter people earn more (all other things equal).
3. Smarter kids are more likely to go to college and finish college.
4. Some of the correlation might not be related to income, but to intelligence.
18
Partially? Or primarily?
2
I am a geneticist. The latest work has found only modest correlations between IQ and heredity. No gene of major effect was found in the most recent and robust Genome Wide Association Study. Certainly, your assertions do not account for a nearly straight ascending slope. This is all about class, race and income. Bert Gold, Ph.D., FACMGG, Frederick Maryland, USA
56
Other things equal??? Really?
And remember, Donald Trump is one really smart guy, 'cause he's rich.
And remember, Donald Trump is one really smart guy, 'cause he's rich.
9
Already the comments are skewing toward exceptional examples of people or groups who beat the odds. Just because there's an exception, doesn't mean there isn't still a rule.
Of course it's more complicated than just income. But income absolutely affects access to all of the other ingredients you need to get to college -- some stability, decent schools, and yes, even involved parents and "culture". Regardless of what you think the real, direct reasons are (yes, correlation doesn't equal causation, the favorite mantra of the vaguely statistically literate), the fact is that rich kids do better than poor kids, and this perpetuates. That's not the world I want to live in. So, can we do something about it?
Of course it's more complicated than just income. But income absolutely affects access to all of the other ingredients you need to get to college -- some stability, decent schools, and yes, even involved parents and "culture". Regardless of what you think the real, direct reasons are (yes, correlation doesn't equal causation, the favorite mantra of the vaguely statistically literate), the fact is that rich kids do better than poor kids, and this perpetuates. That's not the world I want to live in. So, can we do something about it?
61
Not income but culture. If your family and friends around you don't value education, you won't attend college or even bother studying in high school.
3
Correlation does not equate causation.
My wife is a first generation refugee from Vietnam. Her parents was uneducated and they grew up very poor in the worst areas of San Diego. She currently holds a Doctorate from UCLA. She is not alone as similar stories like hers are prevalent among the large waves of Vietnamese refugees that came in the 70s.
My wife is a first generation refugee from Vietnam. Her parents was uneducated and they grew up very poor in the worst areas of San Diego. She currently holds a Doctorate from UCLA. She is not alone as similar stories like hers are prevalent among the large waves of Vietnamese refugees that came in the 70s.
18
A comprehensive study several years ago in California that compared educational achievement among poor Asians with those of poor Hispanics and poor African-Americans concluded that children from poor Asian families did much better academically than the other two groups (note that Asians comprised a diverse group of people from many countries.) But since that data does not support the Liberal narrative, it is conveniently ignored.
31
Nor does an exception disprove a general pattern.
6
Recommended but please provide a link to the study.
Who's to say economists are qualified to conduct such research? Their fundamental assumption likely will be that money is a primary factor. What about looking at those who economically are "poor" also in terms of ethnicity, for instance? Poor Jews, poor Asian groups historically have done quite well academically. Then compare with the children of the so-called Welfare Queens. What about the literacy levels of parents, etc.?
28
Simply brilliant article; and brilliant interactive tool for testing one's (completely made up and conjectural) assumptions.
To level the playing field, I guess there is only ONE thing we can do, i.e., remove the impact of income. We do this by making it free. The Ivies are doing this already (good for them); i.e., if a student who is admitted lacks the family income, they help. So should we all.
Beats spending money on 90% of the things we spend money on right now.
To level the playing field, I guess there is only ONE thing we can do, i.e., remove the impact of income. We do this by making it free. The Ivies are doing this already (good for them); i.e., if a student who is admitted lacks the family income, they help. So should we all.
Beats spending money on 90% of the things we spend money on right now.
37
The drumbeat of income inequality as the casual relationship for virtually everything belies the real facts about higher education access. Access to higher education is primarily a function of socio economic factors influenced by income but not a matter of access by income.
Access to higher ed is a function of:
- academic preparedness
- knowledge of how higher education works
- knowledge of access to higher education financing
- cultural expectations
Today, there are a variety of low cost or no cost options for people who are qualified and have knowledge. In almost every state, successful completion of community college education results in automatic entry into the four year state system. A commuter in state student (> 50% of the total market) can complete a 4 year degree for gross tuition cost of <$20K in tuition. This is entirely financable thru generous student loans. Unlike the headlines in the press, average student loans are in the $25K range not the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the defaults are heavily skewed to small loan amounts (<$5K) not the high loan amounts. More importantly for access, If you are a low income person, you will qualify for Pell Grants - grants not loans in the amount of approximately $5.5K per year which offsets virtually the entire tuition cost of in state four year schools and all of the costs of community colleges.
This is far more about family and knowledge than gross tuition costs or income inequality
Access to higher ed is a function of:
- academic preparedness
- knowledge of how higher education works
- knowledge of access to higher education financing
- cultural expectations
Today, there are a variety of low cost or no cost options for people who are qualified and have knowledge. In almost every state, successful completion of community college education results in automatic entry into the four year state system. A commuter in state student (> 50% of the total market) can complete a 4 year degree for gross tuition cost of <$20K in tuition. This is entirely financable thru generous student loans. Unlike the headlines in the press, average student loans are in the $25K range not the hundreds of thousands of dollars and the defaults are heavily skewed to small loan amounts (<$5K) not the high loan amounts. More importantly for access, If you are a low income person, you will qualify for Pell Grants - grants not loans in the amount of approximately $5.5K per year which offsets virtually the entire tuition cost of in state four year schools and all of the costs of community colleges.
This is far more about family and knowledge than gross tuition costs or income inequality
13
Access to higher ed is a function of:
- academic preparedness
- knowledge of how higher education works
- knowledge of access to higher education financing
- cultural expectations
And all these are highly income-dependent.
- academic preparedness
- knowledge of how higher education works
- knowledge of access to higher education financing
- cultural expectations
And all these are highly income-dependent.
5
Penn State in-state tuition is currently 17K, not 5.5K. Not sure how many states have similarly expensive state schools.
5
Four-year schools are no longer the gold standard in education. We seem to be returning to vocational and training programs, with places like Silicon Valley showing us that graduation from a 4-year school isn't always necessary.