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For everyone who can't be bothered to read the article: 'The second trend is that whether a student graduates or not seems to depend today almost entirely on

For everyone who can't be bothered to read the article: 'The second trend is that whether a student graduates or not seems to depend today almost entirely on just one factor — how much money his or her parents make. To put it in blunt terms: Rich kids graduate; poor and working-class kids don’t.' --- 'But the disadvantaged students who had experienced the belonging and mind-set messages did significantly better: 86 percent of them had completed 12 credits or more by Christmas. They had cut the gap between themselves and the advantaged students in half.' Basically, straightforward encouragement and promotion of a sense of belonging has a significant effect toward equalizing the health, academic performance and graduation rates of economically disadvantaged kids of the same aptitude as wealthier peers.

symfoniq 12y ago
My own experience supports this claim. While I didn't grow up poor, my middle-class parents separated the week I started my freshman year of college. What money there was went to lawyers instead of college tuition. Realizing I was on my own, I took two jobs and tried to make passing grades (mostly succeeding), but after a year I was forced to face financial reality. Already in a lot of debt, I dropped out and never went back. So when it comes to "who gets to graduate," I have little doubt that financial and emotional support are more important than academic ability.
3pt14159 12y ago
IQ is correlated to wealth and IQ is hereditary, so it follows that children from wealthy parents would, on average, have higher IQ than their classmates.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  Wealth is also, to a degree, hereditary...
- Agathos 12y ago
  Can't be bothered to read the article, indeed. When you read about those gaps, you might assume that they mostly have to do with ability. Rich kids do better on the SAT, so of course they do better in college. But ability turns out to be a relatively minor factor behind this divide. If you compare college students with the same standardized-test scores who come from different family backgrounds, you find that their educational outcomes reflect their parents’ income, not their test scores.
  - watwut 12y ago
    Risk reward ratio is entirely different when you are poor and when you are rich. If you are from super rich family, failure to finish university is no big deal. If you are poor, had to take ton of debt, failure to finish makes your life sux for years to come.
- normloman 12y ago
  If intelligence is hereditary, then putting at-risk students in a special program would make no difference in their graduation rates. But it did. So maybe intelligence isn't as hereditary as you think. And maybe IQ isn't a great measure of intelligence.
fd3r4dfresd 12y ago
So we should expect that poor Asian kids in Alabama (where Asians are few) don't graduate, correct? Why is that not the case? http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/interactive-state-high-school-graduation-rates-by-race-ethnicity-20121130 http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/inte... Asians in Alabama graduate at higher rates than whites do.
- bskap 12y ago
  1. That's high school. The article is talking about college. 2. I don't see that chart distinguishing anything by income level.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
prostoalex 12y ago
It might not be as much "rich vs poor" as "two income vs one income" households. The same New York Times published a pretty long article on this phenomenon in 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-... In a nutshell, a two-parent family can better shuffle duties of picking up kids from school and practice, assisting with homework, and just be around to have conversations.
js2 12y ago
This is a bummer: Vanessa called home, looking for reassurance. Her mother had always been so supportive, but now she sounded doubtful about whether Vanessa was really qualified to succeed at an elite school like the University of Texas. “Maybe you just weren’t meant to be there,” she said. “Maybe we should have sent you to a junior college first.” After reading the whole article, this is what really stuck with me. I just can't fathom a parent ever saying this to their child regardless of wealth or education. Why does her supportive mother suddenly undermine her at such a critical juncture? Would the poor kids do better if only their parents consistently expected them to?
- x0x0 12y ago
  Her mother was right. Maybe weak students should -- like in CA -- go to a two year college that is a stepping stone between high school and college, with more oversight and structure; finish their gen eds; and transfer. The diploma says the same thing after 4 years. And to be clear, it's not like Vanessa is a good student. fta: a month into the school year, Vanessa stumbled. She failed her first test in statistics, a prerequisite for admission to the nursing program. She was surprised at how bad it felt. Failure was not an experience she was used to. At Mesquite High, she never had to study for math tests; she aced them all without really trying. (Her senior-year G.P.A. was 3.50, placing her 39th out of 559 students in her graduating class. She got a 22 on the ACT, the equivalent of about a 1,030 on the SAT — not stellar, but above average.) So basically, she only got a 3.5 in hs, and never learned math particularly well. It's not exactly a surprise she struggles at a good university.
  - mikehearn 12y ago
    In her class, she was 39th out of 559. She was in the 93rd percentile of the only group she could compare herself to. Prior to college, I would say she was a phenomenal student compared to her peers. The point of the article is that low-income kids, despite being intelligent and doing well among their peers, have a hard time transitioning to college. Universities could wash their hands of the problem and just reject the poor kids and send them to two-year universities like you suggest, but they’re trying to solve the inequality without further exacerbating our income differences.

symfoniq 12y ago

My own experience supports this claim. While I didn't grow up poor, my middle-class parents separated the week I started my freshman year of college. What money there was went to lawyers instead of college tuition. Realizing I was on my own, I took two jobs and tried to make passing grades (mostly succeeding), but after a year I was forced to face financial reality. Already in a lot of debt, I dropped out and never went back. So when it comes to "who gets to graduate," I have little doubt that financial and emotional support are more important than academic ability.

3pt14159 12y ago

IQ is correlated to wealth and IQ is hereditary, so it follows that children from wealthy parents would, on average, have higher IQ than their classmates.

Terr_ 12y ago
Wealth is also, to a degree, hereditary...
Agathos 12y ago
Can't be bothered to read the article, indeed. When you read about those gaps, you might assume that they mostly have to do with ability. Rich kids do better on the SAT, so of course they do better in college. But ability turns out to be a relatively minor factor behind this divide. If you compare college students with the same standardized-test scores who come from different family backgrounds, you find that their educational outcomes reflect their parents’ income, not their test scores.
- watwut 12y ago
  Risk reward ratio is entirely different when you are poor and when you are rich. If you are from super rich family, failure to finish university is no big deal. If you are poor, had to take ton of debt, failure to finish makes your life sux for years to come.
normloman 12y ago
If intelligence is hereditary, then putting at-risk students in a special program would make no difference in their graduation rates. But it did. So maybe intelligence isn't as hereditary as you think. And maybe IQ isn't a great measure of intelligence.

fd3r4dfresd 12y ago

So we should expect that poor Asian kids in Alabama (where Asians are few) don't graduate, correct? Why is that not the case? http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/interactive-state-high-school-graduation-rates-by-race-ethnicity-20121130 http://www.nationaljournal.com/thenextamerica/education/inte... Asians in Alabama graduate at higher rates than whites do.

bskap 12y ago
1. That's high school. The article is talking about college. 2. I don't see that chart distinguishing anything by income level.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

prostoalex 12y ago

It might not be as much "rich vs poor" as "two income vs one income" households. The same New York Times published a pretty long article on this phenomenon in 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-divided-by-i-do.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/us/two-classes-in-america-... In a nutshell, a two-parent family can better shuffle duties of picking up kids from school and practice, assisting with homework, and just be around to have conversations.

js2 12y ago

This is a bummer: Vanessa called home, looking for reassurance. Her mother had always been so supportive, but now she sounded doubtful about whether Vanessa was really qualified to succeed at an elite school like the University of Texas. “Maybe you just weren’t meant to be there,” she said. “Maybe we should have sent you to a junior college first.” After reading the whole article, this is what really stuck with me. I just can't fathom a parent ever saying this to their child regardless of wealth or education. Why does her supportive mother suddenly undermine her at such a critical juncture? Would the poor kids do better if only their parents consistently expected them to?

x0x0 12y ago
Her mother was right. Maybe weak students should -- like in CA -- go to a two year college that is a stepping stone between high school and college, with more oversight and structure; finish their gen eds; and transfer. The diploma says the same thing after 4 years. And to be clear, it's not like Vanessa is a good student. fta: a month into the school year, Vanessa stumbled. She failed her first test in statistics, a prerequisite for admission to the nursing program. She was surprised at how bad it felt. Failure was not an experience she was used to. At Mesquite High, she never had to study for math tests; she aced them all without really trying. (Her senior-year G.P.A. was 3.50, placing her 39th out of 559 students in her graduating class. She got a 22 on the ACT, the equivalent of about a 1,030 on the SAT — not stellar, but above average.) So basically, she only got a 3.5 in hs, and never learned math particularly well. It's not exactly a surprise she struggles at a good university.
- mikehearn 12y ago
  In her class, she was 39th out of 559. She was in the 93rd percentile of the only group she could compare herself to. Prior to college, I would say she was a phenomenal student compared to her peers. The point of the article is that low-income kids, despite being intelligent and doing well among their peers, have a hard time transitioning to college. Universities could wash their hands of the problem and just reject the poor kids and send them to two-year universities like you suggest, but they’re trying to solve the inequality without further exacerbating our income differences.