Jeffrey Selingo, author of College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education, and What It Means for Students, spoke with NPR about “why colleges are no longer an equalizing force”.
… One of the most disturbing numbers I came across in research for this book was that if you come from a family with a family income above $90,000, you have a 1 in 2 chance of getting a bachelor’s degree by the time you’re in your mid-20s. If you come from a family under $35,000, you have a 1 in 17 chance.
“One of the fears, and one of my fears, is that we might become a country where the next generation is less educated than the generation that preceded it.”
If current trends continue, the next generation is also much more likely to have grown up in a household without a father.
Missing fathers are at the core of a ‘vicious cycle’ of poverty and low education levels.
The chance of a child ending up poor declines by 82 percent when raised in a two-parent family.
Which one factor is more important in equalizing financial opportunities – college or fathers? I don’t know, but if I had a magic wand and could change only one of these, I’d put fathers back into American families. The education part would probably start to take care of itself.
Related: Non-marital births by education level as part of the growing class divide (Cost of College)
Cost of College 