The rich get richer — and more educated: 77 percent of people raised in high-income families — but only 9 percent from low-income families — earned a bachelor’s degree by age 24 in 2013, according to a new report from the Pell Institute and the University of Pennsylvania.
The graduation gap has grown since 1970, and so has the “divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots,'” the report said.
Sixty-two percent of high school graduates from low-income families enroll in college. That’s up sharply from 1970. But only 21 percent of bottom-quartile students complete a bachelor’s degree by age 24. Ninety-nine percent of top-quartile students earn a degree.
Lower-income students often enroll in community colleges, which get less per-student funding than state universities, offer fewer support services and have much lower graduation rates. In California, most Latinos start — and finish — higher education at community colleges.
Workers with “some college” but no credential earn no more than high school graduates who never enrolled, concludes another just-released study, The New Forgotten Half.
