Must-read: Brad Hershbein: “A College Degree Is Worth (Disproportionately) Less If You Are Raised Poor”

Must-Read: Brad Hershbein: A College Degree Is Worth (Disproportionately) Less If You Are Raised Poor: “Boosting college education is… seen by many—including me…

…as a way to lift people out of poverty, combat growing income inequality, and increase upward social mobility. But how much upward lift does a bachelor’s degree really give to earnings? The answer turns out to vary by family background…. It turns out that the proportional increase for those who grew up poor is much less than for those who did not. College graduates from families with an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty level (the eligibility threshold for the federal assisted lunch program) earn 91 percent more over their careers than high school graduates from the same income group. By comparison, college graduates from families with incomes above 185 percent of the FPL earned 162 percent more over their careers (between the ages of 25 and 62) than those with just a high school diploma…. This earnings gap between poor and non-poor college graduates also widens as time passes. Bachelor’s degree holders from low-income backgrounds start their careers earning about two-thirds as much as those from higher-income backgrounds, but this ratio declines to one-half by mid-career…