A college education isn’t the great leveler anymore; its function as a path to the middle- or upper-class is weaker.
“College graduates who come from poorer families largely miss out on the same type of earnings boost that their cohorts from wealthier backgrounds earn across their lifetimes,” Aimee Picchi wrote for CBS News.
The debate over college and its advantages for the poor has been renewed by research from the Brookings Institution. Researchers found that, while poor graduates did earn 91 percent more than their peers who only had a high school diploma, rich graduates earn 162 percent more than their peers with a high school diploma. The gap widened with age, too.
Family and social connections, greater financial resources, better local and regional economies, and college quality might explain the gap.
The end of a college degree as an equalizer is approaching. With more people completing degrees, what was once uncommon is now expected. Graduates aren’t in a small, elite club anymore; they’re expected to hold a degree as a condition for employment. That makes it harder for poor graduates to stand out among their competition.
“If a college degree is not the great equalizer we hoped, strategies to increase social mobility by promoting post-secondary education will fall short,” Brad Hershbein wrote for Brookings.
When graduates get analyzed by income-level, it’s clear why college isn’t an equalizer: low-income students aren’t completing many degrees. For a bachelor’s degree, 55 percent of them go to graduates from the top-income quartile, and only 9.4 percent to graduates from the bottom-income quartile.
More poor students in absolute numbers are obtaining degrees, but proportionally, they’re shrinking. Enrollment for low-income students was 50.9 percent in 2012, barely higher than the enrollment rate in 1993, according to the Pew Research Center. For middle- and high-income student enrollment rates, they’ve reached 64.7 percent and 80.7 percent, respectively. Poor students can’t get ahead because they can’t keep up.
That leaves policymakers in a difficult position. With a degree, poor students can’t improve their career prospects quite like richer students. They also complete degrees at lower rates and more poor students have student debt, even if they don’t complete a degree. For those concerned about economic and social advancement, college isn’t as successful at it than is typically assumed.
