The Diploma Gap Between Rich and Poor

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- When people get more education, theybecome more productive and help strengthen the entire U.S.economy. So it is discouraging to see that students fromwealthy families are increasingly more likely to graduate fromcollege than are those from poor families. This perpetuatesinequality from one generation to the next and limits theeconomic benefits that could come if a wider swath of thepopulation earned college degrees.

The widening gap in college completion rates is documentedin a paper by economists Martha Bailey and Susan Dynarski of theUniversity of Michigan. Looking at children born in the early1960s, the researchers found that only 5 percent of childrenfrom families in the lowest-income quartile completed college,while 36 percent of those from families in the highest-incomequartile did.