Mar 6, 2017
In 2015 the U.S. ranked 10th among OECD countries in college attainment
% of 25- to 34-year-olds completing at least an associate degree
Source: Pew Research Center
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In 2015 the U.S. ranked 10th among OECD countries in college attainment
% of 25- to 34-year-olds completing at least an associate degree
Source: Pew Research Center
It may seem like we're the dumbest we've ever been, but the opposite may be true
It may seem like we’re the dumbest we’ve ever been, but the opposite may be true
You wouldn’t know by the moment that we live in where an alarming population of Americans who believe Donald Trump is restoring the country’s standing in the world, climate change is a myth, vaccinations cause autism, former president Barak Obama is a Kenyan sleeper agent, and chocolate milk comes from brown cows, but as a nation we are the most educated we’ve ever been.
That’s what a Census repo…
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Locating the Finish Line: Completion Several Years On
Eight years ago, William Bowen, Matthew Chingos, and Michael McPherson wrote Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities. A massive longitudinal study of student completions at a host of four-year public flagship institutions and state systems, the book was immediately recognized as an important work, a milestone in the effort to improve student outcomes and the…
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Education is a significant factor in one’s ability to do better than their parents, or even to do just as well. What people forget is that doing well in school isn’t just the result of hard work; one’s social class predicts how well he or she will do in school in the first place. To put it bluntly, upper-class kids have the resources and support necessary to get the kind of education that ensures they become upper-class adults.
Social class divides the futures of high school students.
By Philip Cohen, PhD
There is new research from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), written up by Susan Dynarsky at the New York Times Upshot. The striking finding is that poor children in the top quartile on high school math scores have a 41% chance of finishing a BA degree by their late twenties — the same chance as children from the second-lowest quartile in math scores who are high-socioeconomic status (SES). Poor children from the third-highest quartile in high school math have graduation about equal to the worst-scoring children form the richest group. The figure is above.
The headline on the figure is misleading, actually, since SES is not measured by wealth, but by a combination of parental education, occupation, and income. (Low here means the bottom quartile of SES, Middle is the 25th to 75th percentile, and High is 75th and up.)
One possible mechanism for the disparity in college completion rates is education expectations. Dynarsky mentions expectations measured in the sophomore year of high school, which was 2002 for this cohort. What she doesn’t mention is how much those expectations changed by senior year. Going to the NCES source for that data (here) I found this chart, which I annotated in red:
Between sophomore and senior year, the percentage expecting to finish a BA degree or more decreased and the percentage expecting to go to two-year college increased, across SES levels. But the change was much greater for lower SES students. So the gap in expecting to go to two-year college between high- and low-SES students grew from 6 to 17 percentage points; that is, from 9% versus 3% in the sophomore year to 22% versus 6% in the senior year.
That’s a big crushing of expectations that happened in the formative years at the end of high school.
Cross-posted at Family Inequality.
Philip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He writes the blog Family Inequality and is the author of The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
Beyond College-Ready: Top Charter Schools Support Graduates In College
Beyond College-Ready: Top Charter Schools Support Graduates In College
by Alexandra Starr
It’s high school graduation season, when many students are celebrating the end of their high school career. But some schools are deciding that their job doesn’t end with the granting of a diploma — or even a send-off to college.
Top charter schools can often boast of sending virtually all of their graduates to college, even when the majority of their students are low-income or…
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Beyond College-Ready: Top Charter Schools Support Graduates In College
Beyond College-Ready: Top Charter Schools Support Graduates In College
by Alexandra Starr
It’s high school graduation season, when many students are celebrating the end of their high school career. But some schools are deciding that their job doesn’t end with the granting of a diploma — or even a send-off to college.
Top charter schools can often boast of sending virtually all of their graduates to college, even when the majority of their students are low-income or…
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College Degrees by County, 2009 29% of U.S. Adults Had a College Degree in 2009 Source: Roberto Gallardo