The Impacts Of Poverty And Education

Throughout high school, students are prepped for college. Almost the entire curriculum revolves around getting into or being prepared for college. Many of these students are independent and intelligent individuals. College may be the perfect place for them. Linda Lee contemplates the fact that even though statistics show that college graduates make the most money, the statistics also point out that these students were “the brightest and hardest-working” students. There are also students that fall between the cracks of these statistics. Some students may be skilled in certain areas, but do not make the test scores to apply for a university. Others may be on the

The first determinant of one’s fate is their family’s background. Almost none of the children from low-income families made it through college. With the expenses of college today, I’m actually not surprised by that statistic. Of the children from low-income families, only 4 percent had a college degree at age 28, compared to 45 percent of the children from higher-income backgrounds. "That 's a shocking tenfold

However, when a student wants to attend college after high school, the chances of going to any school of his or her choice can seem unfair and have unequal opportunity to other peers. Unfortunately the idea of being limited to attending certain schools has a big influence in chances of becoming successful. Even though higher educations seems to have a direct path for high wages, the access to college can have reverse effects on intergenerational mobility. By limiting access from someone in a bottom percentile to have the possibility to attend a good college harms their upward mobility. In efforts to help breakdown an understanding of how education affects intergenerational mobility, a study called Mobility reports cards show significant findings. Mobility reports cards were conducted by collecting administrative data from more then thirty million college students in the years of 1999-2013. “We obtain rosters of attendance at all Title-IV accredited institutions of higher education in the U.S using de-identified data from federal income tax returns combined with data from the National Student Loan Data System. We obtain information on students’ earnings in early adulthood and their parents’ incomes from tax records.”

In their article “The Upside of Income Inequality” authors Gary Becker and Kevin M. Murphy argue that the solution to income inequality is to have more and more students attend and graduate from colleges. Becker and Murphy imply that students from “broken households” earn lower grades and test scores, therefore reducing their chances at entering and staying enrolled in colleges due to subpar cognitive skills. Throughout the article, charts are shown to show promising statistics of students of all ethnicities being successful in colleges. However they later state:

Only 5 percent of Americans ages 25 to 34 whose parents didn’t finish high school have a college degree. By comparison, the average across 20 rich countries in an analysis by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is almost 20

The type and level of the school, the chosen major, and the cost of the college are all greatly defined dimensions. Data from a Baccalaureate and Beyond Survey calculated that the only difference between the earnings for a bachelor’s degree and a high school graduate’s lifetime earnings is the degree itself. Additionally, private school students may earn more in a lifetime, but will end up paying more for admission. Although they are making more earnings, their opportunity costs are much higher, making their return on investment lower. Selection of one’s major acts in this same way. The authors explain that the major that is paid the highest is “engineering, followed by computers and math. The lowest paid major… is education, followed by the arts and psychology

The results from this study show that students from low income households have a significantly lower chance of receiving a bachelor degree than those coming from higher income households, which one could probably assume. Even the students that preformed at the top of their class in eighth grade, but lived in low income households had less than thirty-three percent chance of completing college (Roy). This astonishing fact proves that even the highest achieving students still do not have a guarantee of receiving a college education, if their parents have no way to afford it. Another study, conducted by the National Student Clearninghouse Research Center, tracked two million, three hundred thousand people from high school into college to track their performance while in college based on where they attended college. They found that low income students from lower income high schools tended to wait a couple years before enrolling in college while high income students attending higher income high schools enrolled in college the fall semester after graduating high school. Out of these participants, twenty-two thousand, one hundred eight students continued their education into college, and eighty-one percent of these college students successfully completed at least their second year of schooling (Sparks ).

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

Lack of money, health insurance, and other poverty related issues have also led to lower academic performance among children in poverty. In David Berliner’s Letter to The President, he explains how “medical problems are harming student learning in our schools” (252). Since poor children may not have health insurance, or their families may not have the funds to see a doctor, poorer children miss more school due to illness. Also, more children in poverty come from single parent homes, which leaves numerous children on their own after school. In fact, “three fourths of all single mothers are in the labor force” which means there happens to be usually nobody at home to assist poor children with their homework, or help them study for tests

Children living in poverty or low-income neighborhoods are known to have lifelong struggles because of their education. The link between poverty and poor education is a known fact because children living in poverty will rather provide for their families than their own education. As a community, we need to come together to help low-income families and their children obtain a better future in their education. The effects of children living in poverty or low-income neighborhoods is a known issue worldwide and is only affecting our children’s future and ours.

Poverty within neighborhoods throughout the United States has increased immensely throughout the past 50 years. In 2011, nearly 46.2 million Americans were living in poverty compared to the 353,000 Americans who lived in poverty in 1959. (Dosomething 1) Poverty is hardly just defined as a lack of financial resources, it is defined as a condition that results in an absence of the freedom to choose arising from a lack of the capability to function effectively in society. (Poverty and Education 1)  For a person to be impoverished or to be living in a state of poverty is to live where they do not have the economic means to provide a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their family.  A majority of public school students across the country are considered “low-income”, according to a new study by the Southern Education Foundation.  Areas of concentrated impoverishment are often characterised by crime, unemployment, and lack of resources.  Children represent 24 percent of the population, but they comprise 34 percent of all people in poverty.  The shift to a majority-poor student population implies that a growing range of students who attend public schools are less likely to possess support at home, are less often exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend higher education.  Children living in poverty have a higher number of absenteeism or leave school altogether because they are likely to have to work or care for family

The benefits of postsecondary degree attainment have grown sizably in the U.S. labor market. Indeed obtaining a college degree has been proven to be the surest way for young people to achieve upward socio-economic mobility especially for those individuals from economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Issacs, 2007). The incentives therefore, for greater postsecondary degree attainment amongst young people, especially the economically disadvantaged, are compelling.

In today’s culture, roughly 36% of Americans earn a college degree, while the remaining 64% are either presented with different options, or simply do not have the resources to go to college (Butler-Sweet, September 5, 2017). It is often assumed that a person’s college status, as well as their entire life, can be determined by examining his or her intellect, high school performance, and talents. However, C. Wright Mills proposes a new approach to this idea in his work, “The Promise.” Mills presents an idea known as the sociological imagination, which examines society on a larger scale to better grasp an individual’s life circumstances (Mills 2).

The data presented consistently shows that educational ability has very little to do with the background that one comes from, and yet, people that grow up in poverty are still much less likely to complete college, even if they chose to initially attend college (Duncan 101). The research presented suggests that the number one indicator in their data for one’s college success is the income of their family. Though the data in this book provides valuable background information regarding the realities of those who grow up poor and their educational outcomes, it does not provide information on the incomes of college graduates who grew up in poverty. The book, From Parents to Children: The Intergenerational Transmission of Advantage by John Ermisch, Markus Jantti, and Timothy Smeeding concludes that youth in the United States whose families fall in the bottom quintile income distribution are 28% less likely to attend college than those in the top three quintiles (Ermisch 40). This book also illustrates that youth whose parents attended college are much more likely to attend college themselves. This trend can be widely seen in research regarding this topic. Both of these books show the importance of the income of one’s family in their education attainment and achievement. The

In today’s world people need to compete globally for jobs and one of the most important factors in getting a good paying job is education. However, even the best schools cannot overcome some of the obstacles placed in front of the students that walk through their doors. Poverty, chaotic home environments, discrepancies in exposure to technology, and lack of funding for schools all negatively impact the effort to educate children.