4 ms·

'it is easier to "climb up from poverty" as a poor white person in the US than as a poor black person.' In my specific case this may not have been true - race-

'it is easier to "climb up from poverty" as a poor white person in the US than as a poor black person.' In my specific case this may not have been true - race-based scholarships were not available to me because of the white color of my skin for example. Rather than view everything through the lens of race, I'd be curious to see your numbers run with the split based on students of poor urban-schools vs students of better suburban schools.

smeyer 12y ago
The numbers were split not just by race, but also by parental income. Yes, if you're in the bottom 10 percentile of parental income as a white kid, it's harder to get scholarships than if you're black. Still, these kids are more likely to move up the income charts than their black counterparts, because even though race-based scholarships are more available, the other disadvantages outweigh them. While I don't have the numbers at hand, I think it's unreasonable to expect that white children of parents in the bottom 10 percent of income are attending good suburban schools in significant numbers, because if you're in the bottom ten percent of income you probably can't afford to live in those regions, regardless of race. I'm not saying that race is the most important factor, and I'd also like to see splits by schools and other factors. But I think parental income is extremely important, and even after controlling for that we see a very substantial racial component. If race-based scholarships were had such an overriding effect, we wouldn't be able to reproduce these statistics. If you have numbers that show that controlling for some other factor (like school quality) leaves no remaining racial component, definitely let me know, but given how large the disparity remains after controlling for parental income, I sincerely doubt it's the case.

smeyer 12y ago

The numbers were split not just by race, but also by parental income. Yes, if you're in the bottom 10 percentile of parental income as a white kid, it's harder to get scholarships than if you're black. Still, these kids are more likely to move up the income charts than their black counterparts, because even though race-based scholarships are more available, the other disadvantages outweigh them. While I don't have the numbers at hand, I think it's unreasonable to expect that white children of parents in the bottom 10 percent of income are attending good suburban schools in significant numbers, because if you're in the bottom ten percent of income you probably can't afford to live in those regions, regardless of race. I'm not saying that race is the most important factor, and I'd also like to see splits by schools and other factors. But I think parental income is extremely important, and even after controlling for that we see a very substantial racial component. If race-based scholarships were had such an overriding effect, we wouldn't be able to reproduce these statistics. If you have numbers that show that controlling for some other factor (like school quality) leaves no remaining racial component, definitely let me know, but given how large the disparity remains after controlling for parental income, I sincerely doubt it's the case.