Dive Summary:
- A new study of every high school student who took the SAT in a recent year shows that only 34% of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom fourth of income distribution attended any of the 238 most selective American colleges.
- The study--conducted by education researchers Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard--also found that 78% of top students in the top income bracket attended an elite school, underscoring a failure by those colleges and universities to recruit an economically diverse student body despite stating their intentions to do so.
- Top low-income students, the study reports, are more likely to attend community colleges or less-selective four-year schools closer to home, some of which have fewer available resources and lower graduation rates.
From the article:
Most low-income students who have top test scores and grades do not even apply to the nation’s best colleges, according to a new analysis of every high school student who took the SAT in a recent year.
The pattern contributes to widening economic inequality and low levels of mobility in this country, economists say, because college graduates earn so much more on average than nongraduates do. Low-income students who excel in high school often do not graduate from the less selective colleges they attend. ...