Education reformers are obsessed with getting many more low-income students “to and through” four-year colleges. Understandably so, a bachelor’s degree is the closest thing we have to a guaranteed ticket to the middle class.
The trouble is, few children from poorer homes are likely to end up with a BA. As Andrew Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute shows in his chapter of my new book, just 14 percent of children from the bottom third of the income distribution will complete four-year degrees. Even if we doubled that number, most poor and working class kids will still need other paths to the middle class.
“Bachelor’s degree or bust”: A failed strategy
The academic-dominated approach is not working, especially for economically disadvantaged students. Of this group, about 20 percent of teenagers don’t graduate from high school at all. Of those who do graduate, about half matriculate to some form of college. But many are not ready: two-thirds of low-income students at community colleges start in remedial classes.
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