Nathan O. Hatch, president of Wake Forest University, writing in this weekend's WaPo:
For example, students from the top quarter of the socioeconomic hierarchy are 25 times more likely to attend a "top tier" college than students from the bottom quarter. In 1970, only 6 percent of students from the lowest-income families earned a bachelor's degree by age 24. More than 30 years later, the figure was still only 6 percent.
I'm going to have to memorize this one. Most people in this country - and much more personally important to me, most students at Boston University - simply do not understand just how much their parent's social capital has bought them. This statistic is only one small measure of its import, but I suspect that to them it will be a powerful one.
We are born into a dense network of social connections, one that has been built up over multiple generations. It is of course up to us as individuals to determine what we do with those connections, but they should not ever be taken for granted. Your family, your community, even your country - all of them have an enormous impact on the opportunities (or lack thereof) that you will face as you live your life. Talent is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Never forget that.
Also, this:
A study of 78,000 students in California found that SAT scores correlated with family income but not with college grades. In fact, the SAT was the poorest predictor of college performance when compared with high school grades and performance on subject tests.
I think I might even know the causal mechanism here: people with money can and do spend it on SAT test prep services. I should know, because I am a tutor, and believe me, tutoring works. I've seen kids jump 25-30% or more in just a few short months of dedicated one-on-one work. It requires hard work (i.e. time + commitment + motivation) and some basic math and reading skills (i.e. talent), but alone they aren't enough. If that were true, you could just buy a book or take a one-size-fits-all course with one of the big brand name test prep firms and watch your scores go up. And its true, they might. But I promise you, they won't go up nearly as much as if you'd spent a few months working directly with someone who knows how to teach the test to you on-on-one. Talent is necessary, but it is not sufficient. What you need is money and the right social network to help convert that talent into a higher score. Just like life....
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