Who's Going to College?

We hear a lot about college attendance, and how we should encourage low-income students to go to college. And I agree. Look at my previous post, and you might understand why more don't: Family income has stayed stagnant for years while college costs have risen dramatically.

Here is a hot-off-the-presses report from the NCES Digest of Education Statistics, 2013. It shows college attendance rates by income since 1975. There is some good news and some not-so-good news: While all income levels have shown increases in college attendance rates, low-income students still go to college at a rate far below average, and far below students from middle- and high-income families.

In fact, students from low-income families today go to college at a rate lower than students from high-income families in 1975.

PS: If you happen to know anyone at NCES, could you ask them to put their data in a better format? It was great to format Excel sheets for report-printing 15 years ago, but the world has moved on...

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