User:Salmanrkh/sandbox

The area below was added to the Higher Education in the United States under "Selected Issues". I also connected this article to the "Educational Equality" article.

Socioeconomic Status:

Socioeconomic status can play a significant role in an individual's chances of taking advantage of higher education. A 2011 national study found that college students with a high socioeconomic status persisted in college 25 percent more than students with a low socioeconomic status.[80] In fact, students with a high socioeconomic status are 1.55 times more likely to persist in college than students with a low socioeconomic status. Attaining even higher degrees than a bachelor's degree can also be affected by socioeconomic status. A 2008 study reports that 11 percent of students with low socioeconomic status report earning a master's, medical, or law degree compared to 42 percent of high socioeconomic students.[81] Analyst Jeffrey Selingo wondered whether higher education had less and less ability to level the playing field.[2] A 2007 study found that 52 percent of low-income students who qualified for college enrolled within 2 years of graduation compared to 83 percent of high-income students.[82]

Suzanne Mettler notes in her book, Degrees of Inequality, that in 1970 40% of US students in top income quartile had achieved a bachelor’s degree by the age of 24. By 2013, this percentage rose to 77%. For students in the bottom income quartile, only 6% had earned a bachelor’s degree in 1970. By 2013, this percentage was still at a marginal 9%. Unfortunately, there have been and continue to be many barriers for students of lower socioeconomic status to get access. There are certain organizations and programs that have capitalized on the idea that attaining a college degree, specifically at a top tier university, is critical to social mobility. Organizations like QuestBridge, a non-profit focused on helping students of low socioeconomic status and minority background, have helped historically underrepresented groups attain a significant degree of social advantage. QuestBridge is partnered with the nation’s top 38 colleges and has helped over 13,000 students gain entrance into these universities since 2004. However, even these accomplishments are minuscule, when we recognize that there are between 25,000 to 35,000 low income students that are qualified to gain entrance into the nation’s top universities each year, but do not even apply. By these standards, QuestBridge has served less than 4% of the students that they focus on.

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that in 2009, high school graduates from low-income families enrolled in college immediately, at a rate of 55 percent. In comparison, 84 percent of high school graduates from high-income families enrolled immediately into college. Middle-class families also saw lower rates with 67 percent enrolling in college immediately.[83] It also found that a high percentage of students who delayed enrollment in college attended high schools that had a high level of participation in the free and reduced lunch program. Students who work long hours in high school are less likely to pursue post-secondary education.[84] Students who had access to financial aid contacts were more likely to enroll in higher education than students who did not have these contacts.[82]

When considering how a college degree affects labor market outcomes, it is especially important to consider differences in socioeconomic status (SES). For example, research shows that students of low SES are more likely than their high SES peers to delay entering a college. This delay can cause different effects for different students. For example, research shows that students who delayed at least one year after high school were 64% less likely to complete their degree as opposed to those who enroll immediately after high school. In the same study, Bozick and DeLuca found that the average time delay for students in the lowest SES quartile was 13 months, while for students in higher SES quartiles averaged about 4 months.

Research in the area of delayed college enrollment is not extensive, however, a clear theme emerges in that lower SES students constitute a much larger percentage of students that delay enrollment, while students of higher SES tend to enroll immediately after high school. According to a similar study “an increase in family income of $10,000 decreases a student’s odds of planning to delay by about 3%, and having a parent with a bachelor’s degree decreases the odds of planning to delay by about 34%.” This is significant, because by delaying enrollment low SES students are less likely to earn a college degree, and therefore they do not receive the benefits associated with completion. For example, studies have shown that earning a bachelor’s degree will increase lifetime earnings by 31% more than an associate’s degree, and 74% more than those with a high school diploma. These benefits extend beyond lifetime income and include a lower incidence of poverty, higher likelihood of being insured, higher retirement income, higher job safety, higher life expectancy, lower probability of being jailed, and more. Completing a college degree also provides a communal benefit. For example, for example a decrease in crime, greater philanthropic contributions, lower government expenditures, higher voter turnout, and greater participation in overall community spaces. By delaying college enrollment, students of lower SES are less likely to reap these benefits.

Socioeconomic status can also influence performance rates once at a university. According to a 2008 study, students with a low socioeconomic status study less, work more hours, have less interaction with faculty, and are less likely to join extra-curricular activities. Forty-two percent of students with low socioeconomic status indicated that they worked more than 16 hours a week during school, with a high percentage working up to 40 hours a week,[85]although such students may benefit since potential employers assign great importance to a graduate's work experience.[86] This is also evidence of a positive relation between socioeconomic status and social integration at university. In other words, middle-class students take part in more formal and informal social activities and have a greater sense of belonging to their universities than do working-class students.[87]

 Race 

For the last fifty years, the United States higher education system has been viewed as a vehicle for social mobility and economic equality. As a result, there has been a clear struggle to try and open access to higher education for the wider population so that more individuals can benefit from this economic good. Programs like Affirmative Action have been at the forefront of this struggle. By increasing access to diverse and minority populations, greater social mobility is expected. However, a recent report by the Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce demonstrates that progress has not yet been adequately made. The report actually makes clear that higher education has been a source of increasing racial inequality in the United States. The authors, Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, focused on Latinos and African American minority groups. Through their research they show that overall access for minority enrollment has increased at a greater rate than enrollment for white students, but this growth is heavily concentrated in the poorest, and least selective colleges and universities.

This difference is very important to note, because growing inequality between universities has an affect on graduation rates and time to complete a degree for students. The study shows that more selective universities provide their students with better resources. The authors show that the 82 most selective colleges spend $27,900/student on average, while the open access colleges (where Latinos and African Americans are over-represented) spend $6,000/student on average. Unsurprisingly, graduation rates are the highest in the more selective universities, where more resources are available to students inside and outside of the universities. They further demonstrate that persistence and completion rates at more selective universities are higher regardless of race or ethnicity. The end product of this is the increased reproduction of educational inequalities across generations.

It is very important to note that this data presents a serious challenge to proponents of “mismatch” theory. This theory was advocated very heavily during the Supreme Court Case, Fisher v. University of Texas in 2013. It claims that Affirmative Action causes more harm than benefit, because it provides opportunities to students that are not prepared well enough to succeed at more elite institutions. This data shows that the opposite is true, in that many minority students are attending less selective universities, and are therefore not being given enough resources to succeed. The issue is not that they are attending more selective universities and failing.

A 2007 study found that African Americans are more likely to delay enrolling in college.The National Center for Education Statistics reports that between 2003 and 2009 rates of immediate college enrollment increased for Asian Americans and whites, but not for African Americans.[83] The 2011 Condition of Education study found that in 2008, 63% of college students were white, while 14 percent were African American and 12 percent were Hispanic.[83] Minority groups tend to remain the most underrepresented at more selective universities. This is despite programs like Affirmative Action that seek to provide underrepresented students with greater access to colleges. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, African American students suffer the most in regards to under-representation at more selective universities. Consider that the cumulative percent change for African American students at open access universities has increased by 113.6% since 1994, but that at top tier universities it has barely changed, having gone down by 0.3%. At Harvard, 6.5% of undergraduates were black in 2013, while it was 7.4% in 1994. At universities focusing on bachelors, and graduate degrees African American enrollment in 2013 had only increased by 3% since 1994. According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanic students college enrollment has increased by 240% since 1996, more than their African American or White counterparts. However, this growth is similarly at the open access colleges and does not translate into enrollment at four-year colleges. A study by the Pew Research Center, claimed that "Young Hispanic college students are less likely than their white counterparts to enroll in a four-year college (56% versus 72%), they are less likely to attend a selective college, less likely to be enrolled in college full time, and less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree." Given this information, it is clear that increased college enrollment may not mean that Hispanic students are reaping the benefits of a college degree.

Race can play a part in a student's persistence rate in college: Drop-out rates are highest with the Native American and African American population, both greater than 50 percent.[80] Caucasians and Asian Americans had the lowest dropout rates.

Another issue related to race is faculty representation at universities. According to data from the U.S. Department of Education, full-time faculty remain heavily white at universities across the country. In 2013, 78% of full-time faculty members nationwide were white.