Complete report
...New federal data show that the United States still fails miserably at providing equitable access to learning beyond high school, particularly in terms of socio-economic status. Students from the lowest levels of socio-economic status (SES) enroll in college at a rate that’s 60 percent the level of their best-off peers. When they do enroll, they are far more likely to attend a nonselective college or pursue something less than a bachelor’s degree...
These findings come from the latest follow-up to the National Center for Education Statistics’ High School Longitudinal Study of 2009
(HLS). The survey tracks more than 23,000 students who were in ninth
grade in 2009, showing how many enrolled in or completed college by
February 2016.
This column presents four findings about
college access from these new data...:
1. There are major gaps in college-going by socio-economic status
Overall, 70 percent of students who were
in ninth grade in 2009 had enrolled in some form of postsecondary
education by February 2016. But college-going was not evenly distributed
across SES quintiles. More than 90 percent of students in the highest
SES quintile enrolled in college, compared with just 56 percent of those
in the lowest SES quintile.
2. Higher-achieving, low-SES students enroll in college at lower rates than their low-achieving, high-SES peers
High-achieving students from lesser means
offer the most stark example of the pernicious effect of money and class
on college opportunity. The new data show that the students in the
lowest SES quintile with the highest scores on a math skills assessment
developed for the survey enroll in college at a rate 18 percentage
points lower than their peers in the highest SES quintile with similarly
high scores....
3. Students in lower SES quintiles are less likely to enroll in four-year colleges and bachelor’s degree programs
Setting aside gaps in the rates at which
students enroll in postsecondary education, there are significant
differences in the types of schools in which students enroll, and the
credentials they pursue, based on their socio-economic status. Nearly 80 percent of students in the highest SES quintile enroll
in a four-year public or private nonprofit college, and 90 percent
pursue a bachelor’s degree. By contrast, just 36 of the students in the
lowest SES quintile attend these types of schools, with about the same
share seeking a bachelor’s degree.
Although many types of postsecondary
credentials provide an economic return, these results are concerning.
Public and private nonprofit four-year institutions have higher
graduation rates than other types of colleges. And bachelor’s degrees,
on average, provide a much higher earnings boost than other types of postsecondary credentials.
4. Higher-SES black and Latinx students are less likely to attend selective colleges than their white peers
While selective colleges enroll only a
small share of students in higher education, they have an outsize role
in America’s postsecondary education system. That’s because these
schools have greater resources on which to draw than do most other types
of institutions, and they can put students on the path to particularly
prestigious job opportunities that may not be as available to those who attend less selective institutions. And these benefits are particularly important
for underrepresented students. This is not to say that policy should
focus only on elite colleges but instead that ensuring sufficient
diversity at these institutions is an important component of any policy
to improve the higher education system.
No comments:
Post a Comment