
January 26, 2023
12:30 pm
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1:30 pm
Hybrid: McPherson 4054 and Zoom
Money Matters: "Income Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility Across Colleges in the United States"
Deb, Kaz, and Karina will present a study using publicly available tax data to understand how income plays a factor in higher education representation.
Key findings
- Low– and middle-income students attend selective schools at lower rates than their peers from richer families, even when comparing students with the same test scores.
- The middle class is heavily under-represented at elite private colleges relative to others with the same test scores, but children from the lowest-income families are not.
- If low-income students were given a preference in the application and admissions process similar to that given to children of alumni at elite private colleges, the fraction of low-income students would be similar across colleges.
- Increasing the representation of low- and middle-income students at selective colleges could substantially increase inter-generational income mobility in the United States.
Links:
- Core Literature: https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/undermatching/
- Summary: https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/undermatch_summary.pdf
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SES Indicators for OSU (as an example): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/the-ohio-state-university