Income inequality and

education
Charlie Baum, ELizabeth Accomando, Drake Scrivens, Jackie
Rosenberg, Olivia Gehrs
 What is the relationship between income inequality and
education quality?
● Quality of education depends on
what schools a child attends,
what resources they have access
to, and household status
○ All of these things involve
money
● Quality of education for a child
in a low-income household
compared to a child in a
high-income household
 Effects of income inequality on the quality of education
● Educational achievement gap
between the children of the
wealthiest ant the children of
everyone else has been widening
since the 1970s
● How well-prepared are children
for school before entering
kindergarten?
● Resources matter
● Education is increasingly
important in today’s world
 Effects of the Quality of Education On income inequality

● Project STAR
● Do smaller class sizes
really make a difference?
● Non-cognitive skills
● Do differences in school
quality perpetuate income
inequality in the United
States?
 Effects on Our Economy
● Future economic growth
● Development of the future workforce
● Educational and enrichment opportunities across the income spectrum
Private vs. public education
Public Schools
- Public Good
- The Great Equalizer
Private Schools:
- Opportunity of Choice
- Education as a Private Good
- Issues such as Religious
Freedom
Private vs. Public Education
How does the existence of private schools affect income inequality?
• Allows parents the option of purchasing potentially “better” schooling
for their children.
• Higher education - In some cases, private schools provide students, that
can afford it, the ability to get a degree, where as if they couldn’t afford
it they wouldn’t have the ability to pursue higher education at all or
would be severely limited in their choices for it.
• Higher education allows for better jobs = higher incomes.
How does income inequality affect the public and private schooling systems.
• Allows for those with higher incomes to choose a different school.
• Individuals with lower incomes, in general, have the option of one school.
The Path to College Admissions
- More and more students are beginning to apply
to more and more schools but admission rates
have fallen because the schools cannot
accommodate for the amount of applicants
- Application processes are becoming (slowly)
more equal because things like the Common App
are becoming more available, but this doesn’t
have huge impact on the application volume
- Despite the rise of applicants to four year
universities there is still a drastically large
estimate of the amount of degrees lost to
financial concerns
 Who is Accepted? Why?
-With the current college admissions scandal, we are right to be questioning if
the process is even fair or just a way for the wealthy to stay wealthy
- With large, prestigious universities being in the scandal, some analysis has been
done and has found that Legacy students have a higher chance of being admitted
into Ivy Leagues (for example, JFK and George W. Bush were both considered
legacy students and got admitted into Ivy League schools despite not having the
qualifications)
- Example: Legacy students at Harvard have acceptance rate of 34% vs
non-Legacy with rate of 5.9%)
- And because there is a racial divide in income inequality, students who are white
have a higher admissions rate than students of color (42% vs 36%)
How Income Inequality Affects College Admissions/Is
affected by College Admissions
- There is a repeating cycle of why low income students don’t apply/get into
schools at the same rate of higher income students
- Those who can afford SAT prep, AP prep, private tutors, etc. tend to be
on a clearer path towards college and can afford it are more likely to go
through with the process
- Income inequality creates a divide between college students from different
economic statuses because, even though they are at the same
institutions, how they got there and where they will go will be different
- Return to education
- The college premium
Income Inequality vs The Cost of
Education
- Low income = low
education, lower
reputation schools
- High income = high
education, better schools
(more expensive)
- It’s a cycle
- Income inequality
Financial Aid and Income Inequality

- Tuition increase vs Financial Aid

- Private schools
Student Debt and Income Inequality
- Lower income higher debt
- Higher income pays off debt quicker
- Better jobs
 - The more advanced your degree
is, the more you earn...

- ...and the more likely you are

to be employed
Education is helpful to:
- Earn more income
- Employment
- Stay above poverty level
- Gap between those
with a Bachelor’s
degree or more and
those with any less
education widens
through time
- A college degree is
worth less if you are
raised poor
- Those who are above
185% of the federal
poverty line make
significantly more than
than peers that are
below the line