Background
According to Wagmiller, 45.3% of Americans who lived in poverty for at least half of their childhood will remain in poverty. The problem becomes even more acute when discussing African Americans since a single year of poverty can cause 27.1% to remain in poverty. This phenomena is known as the cycle of poverty and it runs counter to one of the ideals we hold sacred: meritocracy. Ideally, we would not see a correlation between a parent’s income level and the income level of the child. The child’s income should rise or fall depending on the talent of the individual. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The problem is more than ideological. The cycle of poverty is expensive for the United States. Poverty is associated with crime, increase use of public assistance and a loss of economic productivity. A good proxy for the victims of the cycle of …show more content…
However, the challenge runs deeper than simply creating programs at the college level to increase college graduation rates. First, few low income students will make it to the college level. For our purposes, we shall view the process of cradle to college in three steps: high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion. Countless students do not make it from one step to the next. Wodtke and Harding have shown that low income students have a lower high school graduation rate (87%) compared to affluent students (95%). For the 87% of low income students who graduated from high school, only 51% of students actually enroll in college. Up to this point, 44.4% of students have managed to make it so far. Finally, once college graduation comes around 20% of those students enrolled in college graduate. This comes to a grand total of 9% finishing college. The 9% is a stark contrast to affluent students and their 77% college graduation
According to Wagmiller, 45.3% of Americans who lived in poverty for at least half of their childhood will remain in poverty. The problem becomes even more acute when discussing African Americans since a single year of poverty can cause 27.1% to remain in poverty. This phenomena is known as the cycle of poverty and it runs counter to one of the ideals we hold sacred: meritocracy. Ideally, we would not see a correlation between a parent’s income level and the income level of the child. The child’s income should rise or fall depending on the talent of the individual. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The problem is more than ideological. The cycle of poverty is expensive for the United States. Poverty is associated with crime, increase use of public assistance and a loss of economic productivity. A good proxy for the victims of the cycle of …show more content…
However, the challenge runs deeper than simply creating programs at the college level to increase college graduation rates. First, few low income students will make it to the college level. For our purposes, we shall view the process of cradle to college in three steps: high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion. Countless students do not make it from one step to the next. Wodtke and Harding have shown that low income students have a lower high school graduation rate (87%) compared to affluent students (95%). For the 87% of low income students who graduated from high school, only 51% of students actually enroll in college. Up to this point, 44.4% of students have managed to make it so far. Finally, once college graduation comes around 20% of those students enrolled in college graduate. This comes to a grand total of 9% finishing college. The 9% is a stark contrast to affluent students and their 77% college graduation