"PBS NewsHour" wants to know why are so few kids from poorer families getting college degrees? Working with the Hechinger Report and Inside Higher Ed, "NewsHour" will spend this week looking at schools that are trying to address the college gap between rich and poor.
One of the schools featured in the report is Arizona State University, whose president, Michael Crow, was highlighted last winter in the Deseret News for his efforts to make college more accessible and affordable by building a quality research university that is broadly accessible to more students.
"Despite a focus from the Obama administration and countless nonprofits," PBS notes, "degree attainment in the U.S. is not rising fast. In 2013, 40 percent of those between 25 and 65 had a postsecondary credential, just 2.1 percentage points [more] than the 37.9 percent that did in 2008."
And much of the progress is occurring in families that are already well off. "More students are enrolling in college," according to PBS, "but the percent of students who actually earn a college credential by the age of 24 has only increased significantly for families with the highest household incomes."
Last winter the University of Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education released a study finding that 77 percent of adults from families in the income bracket got a bachelor degree by age 24, up from 40 percent in 1970. Meanwhile, 9 percent from the lowest income bracket did the same, up from 6 percent in 1970, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Most experts agree the need for post-secondary education becomes more pressing as time goes on. The Georgtown Center on Education and the Workforce projects out that by 2020 "65 percent of all jobs in the economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school." Thirty-five percent of new jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree, they estimate, while 30 percent will demand some college or an associate’s degree. An additional 36 percent will not require education beyond high school.
Email: eschulzke@desnews.com