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It’s not easy to get more poor kids into college

This is a sad story in the Wall Street Journal today. Michael Bloomberg wanted to help bright but disadvantaged kids get into good colleges, so he teamed up with two outfits, CollegePoint and the American Talent Initiative:

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has spent more than $140 million over the past decade to get tens of thousands more talented, lower-income students into top-flight colleges. Those big ambitions have so far fallen short.

....Bloomberg Philanthropies worked with researchers to study their work with CollegePoint. They found 51.4% of students with access to the program enrolled in high-graduation-rate colleges, compared with 50.1% for a control group.

....The American Talent Initiative launched in 2016 with about 30 schools that publicly committed to increasing the socioeconomic diversity of their student populations....In total, 18,100 more Pell grant recipients have enrolled at member schools since 2015.

The awkward but probable truth is that there just aren't a lot of poor but bright high school students falling through the cracks. We've done such a good job of sorting kids by ability over the past 80 years that by now there just aren't a lot of them left—and the ones who remain are mostly tracked into college already. That's not to say there's literally nothing left we can do, but we should probably accept that nothing we do will have a big effect.

I suppose this is both good news and bad news. In either case, it's most likely the truth.

29 thoughts on “It’s not easy to get more poor kids into college

  1. MF

    The two big drivers of poor educational outcomes for bright kids in disadvantages environments are culture and horrible educational systems. The two interact.

    Culture results in children who turn schools into zoos - fights, bullying of nerds, prioritization of sports over education, etc. (These are not just issues in inner cities. There are plenty of rural majority white schools that care far more about their football team than their students with a chance to go to decent universities.)

    Bad schools tolerate this misbehavior, refuse to separate the students willing and able to learn from those that are disruptive, try to drag down students who can and will learn to the level of their peers by dumbing down courses, eliminating advanced courses in early grades, taking up precious teaching time with social justice and "culturally relevant education" instead of science and the three Rs, and then try to eliminate standardized testing so these schools' educational failure will not be so obvious.

    A closely related issue is the capture of education departments and school administration by teachers' unions in many places. The real scandal in the Jay Varma tapes was not the sex scandals. It was the revelation (obvious to anyone paying attention) that de Blasio knew he could safely send kids back to school and that extended closures were hurting children (especially the most disadvantaged) but kept the schools closed at the behest of the teachers' union. https://www.yahoo.com/news/ex-nyc-covid-czar-complained-173809441.html

  2. Dr Brando

    Because they've already fallen through the cracks by the time they reach high school. Programs that support housing and food security throughout childhood are the only things that would move this number.

    1. MattBallAZ

      This. High School is just too late. Whatever else you say about him, Malcolm Gladwell had a great episode of Revisionist History on this - Carlos Doesn't Remember.

  3. sonofthereturnofaptidude

    "We've done such a good job of sorting kids by ability over the past 80 years that by now there just aren't a lot of them left—and the ones who remain are mostly tracked into college already."

    By "we" I think you might mean "the real estate market" or "zip codes," at least for public school students. When I taught in a poor urban neighborhood, I began to realize how little chance any of my students achieve educational success.

    But it's more than that. Its the way schools are designed. The reason they were such poor students was BECAUSE they were poor, lived in a dangerous neighborhood and had parents who were functionally illiterate, often in a language other than English. But in a much nicer neighborhood, I realized that the same situation applied, and that the school itself was structured to favor the better-off kids with free sports to gild their resume's (subsidized by real estate taxes), free transportation to all their games, lots of excused absences for those games and for college visits, and with a grading system that was rigged to favor the better-off kids. Even in a high school that works to help the less advantaged along, the structural inequities are usually too much to overcome.

    1. MF

      How, exactly, was the grading system rigged to favor the better off kids?

      I attended one of NYC's selective high schools. I had plenty of classmates who lived in rent controlled apartments, had parents who could not speak English (especially the Chinese kids), etc. They excelled. Almost all went to selective colleges, most are probably millionaires by now (not hard if you work and save in retirement accounts), and several that I know of are billionaires.

      1. DudePlayingDudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude

        Those non-English speaking Chinese parents were probably highly educated in their own language, which is a big deal.

        1. emjayay

          No, they are mostly probably not highly educated in anything. But the Confusian culture is about behaving correctly, praciticality (like getting yourself into a highly paid profession by getting educated and credentialed), respect for elders and in particular teachers etc.

          Only an anecdote, but I was substituting for an art teacher in a San Francisco public middle school. The teacher left a simple drawing assignment. The class was very evenly split among black, Asian/Chinese, and white kids. Each group went to tables with their respective groups.

          The white kids goofed and joked around for a while and eventually got to work and did some semblance of the assignment. The Asian kids went to work right away and turned in completed versions of the assignment. The black kids did not turn in anything.

        2. MF

          Actuality no. This was back in the 1980s. At that time Chinese immigrants were mostly mainland refugees or Hong Kongers getting out before 1997.

          Education levels of parents were low because there weren't many university places and many had had their educations disrupted by the Cultural Revolution.

          I also wonder how having non English speaking educated parents would help a kid navigate the rigged grading system OP claims exists.

    1. tango

      Austin, I think you should back off the harassment of MF. I sometimes agree, and more frequently disagree with him, but his posts are generally civil and raise legit issues. Your constant efforts to shut him up through this kind of bullying because, best as I can tell, he tends to be right of center and you are considerably to his left, does not reflect well on you.

  4. D_Ohrk_E1

    Your premise is not what the story is about.

    The headline is clear: "Bloomberg’s $140 Million Push to Get Lower-Income Students Into Top Colleges Falls Short".

    It's not about getting more poor kids into college; it's to get them into top colleges. There are a lot of reasons why poor kids don't want to go to such schools. First, even if you're getting free tuition, everyone else around you is driving Bimmers and Benzes -- there's a cultural component that makes a poor person uncomfortable. Second, free tuition does not mean all of your expenses are covered. Third, there's a big difference in competitiveness at top colleges compared to the competitiveness these kids experienced in their high schools. Fourth, a lot of kids want to be close to their families rather than pick up and move across state lines; every time you move in/out of your dorm is an extra cost and stress.

    If this were about giving all kids who qualify for at least partial Pell Grants a full ride including living expenses (stipend) to any 4-year college, we'd be talking a different issue. I'd bet he'd find a half-million kids who'd take up this offer.

    Also, in this age of NIL, the path of many poor kids is clearer and more achievable: Do well in sports.

  5. middleoftheroaddem

    I am on an advisory panel for a selective university (sub 10% acceptance rate). I saw admissions data that shocked me.

    The average household income for the university's black admits, was ~ $185,000. Thus, yes they are finding qualified black students but, many of these students come from wealthy families. The figures for Hispanics were slightly lower, but not wholly different.

    Stated differently, I was told there are not tons of academically elite, limited resourced, kids of color attending less competitive universities. MOST of the aforementioned students are recruited and attend elite ish universities.

      1. Yikes

        I am curious as why it "shocked" you. That rough number, say, something north of $100K is about where you would (or I would) draw a line to show that families above that line generally have sufficient resources to pour such resources into the education of their kids. At some point, not sure if its right at $99K, they don't.

        Further, I am surprised, but not shocked, that Bloomberg would think that some amount of money is what is standing between students OTHERWISE QUALIFIED to get into high level colleges (and note, of this group its like 50% are getting into colleges with overall acceptance rates in the single digits, if I read this right).

        Someone above pointed out the captain obvious answer that the other 50% was almost certainly going to college but likely one closer to home or something.

        This would not be worth a comment but for the fact that our obsession with being a "classless" society which now has all the classes of any other society hurts liberal policies so much. It would be better to spend the same money trying to turn the needle away from what at least 50% of the country believes, which is that the "poor are lazy and deserve it."

        Picking out the handful of poor kids who can get into elite colleges anyway is not really helpful overall (although it obviously helps those students).

        1. Yikes

          By the way, what the money was being spent on was, hmmm, ... what to call it, "counseling."

          But "counseling" for kids who, lets say, had the grades and SAT for Berkeley but just applied to Cal State Long Beach instead.

          It was intended to give poor kids the equivalent of the type of admissions assistance that rich kids get and pay for.

          So it was not really about what most of us are commenting about, which is the percentage of poor kids getting into top colleges.

          Its was really about giving poor, but qualified, kids access to counseling that rich parents pay for.

          Hence the "50%" number I referenced above.

          1. middleoftheroaddem

            Yikes - the Head of Admissions, for the university I am deeply familiar with, said basically 'without lowering standards, it is difficult to significantly increase enrollment of Pell eligible students. Further, we already have a challenge with, relatively, lower graduation rates in subject such as Physics, Chemistry and Engineering for our Pell eligible students. '

            I take the above listed to mean, low income, versus skin color is the key variable.

          2. middleoftheroaddem

            Yikes - while its true and money allows for SAT tutors etc, I THINK the challenge for low income students is FAR broader. I serve as a mentor to three low income students, and money is just a part of a broad set of problems they seem to face.

            1. Yikes

              Middle, I agree, my point was that many of us took Kevin's post as a jumping off point for improving education of low income students broadly.

              When, actually, the Bloomberg program was very narrow, taking (presumably high school juniors) who had already been identified as being qualified for college "A" and counseling them so they would not settle for less and apply to junior college or college "B" or something.

              That's why the Bloomberg group and the control group had 50% admission rates.

  6. bizarrojimmyolsen

    Their intervention is probably coming 10 years too late. The real focus should be on improving early childhood education. Talking to teacher friends in a relatively affluent Atlanta suburb the number of fourth graders who lack basic reading, writing, and analytical skills is shocking.

  7. DudePlayingDudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude

    That's because we need universal pre-school, so that kids from poor neighborhoods could have at least a semblance of the advantages that more affluent kids have. By the time they get to school, they are already behind the eight ball.

    1. middleoftheroaddem

      DudePlayingDudeDisguisedAsAnotherDude while the concept of universal pre school really sounds appealing, the reality has not often been that compelling.

      In most examples, free universal pre K has ZERO statistical impact by 4th grads. Further, at least in the Montreal example, free pre K had a negative impact on students in the study....

    2. Jasper_in_Boston

      That's because we need universal pre-school

      We need way more than that. Looks at intergenerational economic mobility statistics for Finland sometime and compare them to America's. And then weep.

      Nordic countries effectively target child poverty. America doesn't. Universal pre-school would help. But again, we need a lot more than that. Common sense gun control could play a role, too, because the stress from growing up in a war zone can't be helpful to early child development.

  8. pjcamp1905

    You want to do something? You could do worse than what my college does. We let anyone in and then we provide them with the support services and innovative pedagogies they need to help them be successful. Our college took its mission as expanding the pool of people able to succeed in college. We do a decent job of it. We're open access by choice, not because no one wants to come here.

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