First-generation Students

From Weekly I/O#21


The percentage of “first-generation” students (the first in their families to attend college) at Harvard today is no higher than it was in 1960.

Book: The Tyranny of Merit

Some noteworthy data about higher education in America:

  1. The percentage of “first-generation” students (the first in their families to attend college) at Harvard today is no higher than it was in 1960.
  2. If you come from a rich family (top 1 percent), your chances of attending an Ivy League school are 77 times greater than if you come from a poor family (bottom 20 percent).
  3. At Ivy League colleges, Stanford, Duke, and other prestigious places, there are more students from the wealthiest 1 percent of families than from the entire bottom half of the country.
  4. At Yale and Princeton, only about one student in fifty comes from a poor family (bottom 20 percent).
  5. More than 70 percent of those who attend the hundred or so most competitive colleges in the United States come from the top quarter of the income scale; only 3 percent come from the bottom quarter.

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