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09 Jun 08
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There is little question that academic preparation matters and that differences in preparation among students continue to pose daunting challenges to our ability to promote greater equality in college. But even among students with similar levels of academic skills, low-income students are still less likely to attend four-year institutions than are high-income students. Even when they do, they are less likely to attend elite institutions than are high-income students. Indeed there is even less income diversity than racial or ethnic diversity at the most selective colleges. Whereas roughly three quarters of the students at highly selective colleges come from families in the top quartile of the socioeconomic scale, just 3 percent come from the bottom quartile.
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Data from a six-year national longitudinal study of students who began college in 1995-6 bears testimony to this fact. Whereas 6 in 10 students who entered a four-year institution earned a bachelor’s degree within six years, only a little more than 1 in 10 public two-year college entrants did so.
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Of those who began higher education in a public four-year college or university in 1995-6, only 48 percent of low-income students earned their four-year degree within six years while 69 percent of high-income students did so.
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The net result is that while 6 in 10 high-income students who began higher education in 1995-6 earned a bachelor’s degree within six years, only 1 in 4 low-income students did so.
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For too many low-income students the “open door” to American higher education has become a revolving door.
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Simply put, our success depends on community colleges’ success. But closing the achievement gap will be not achieved by practice as usual, by add-ons that do little to change the experience of low-income students in college. What is required is a more serious and substantial restructuring of student experience especially for the many students who enter college academically under-prepared.
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