A recent study showed that mid-tier universities have produced graduates who earn well despite coming from low-income families. These universities are those that give good value for every money invested by their students.
A study from the Equality Opportunity Project revealed that mid-tier universities have higher mobility rates compared to their Ivy League counterparts. Mobility is the term given to describe students from low-income families finishing college and earning more than their parents. It also includes having a better quality of life than their parents.
After evaluating 30 million student data from across the nation, the study showed that mid-tier public universities have the highest mobility rates based on two factors - the number of students from low-income families and good outcomes.
The college with the highest mobility rate is the California State University, Los Angeles with a 9.9 percent mobility rate. Its access rate in terms of accepting low-income students is 33.1 percent while its success rate is 29.9 percent.
Along with CSU are Pace University and the State University of New York at Stony Brook with an 8.4 percent mobility rate. Pace has an access rate of 15.2 percent and a success rate of 55.6 percent. SUNY Stony Brook, on the other hand, has a 16.4 percent access rate and 51.2 success rate.
The study also showed that most colleges and universities including those that belong to Ivy League have more students that belong to the top 1 percent tier
than those who are from the bottom 20 percent.
The authors of the study - Raj Chetty, John Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, Nicholas Turner, and Danny Yagan - said that it also goes to show how higher education institutions have poorly created an economically diverse student body. The truth still stands that the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer.
Chetty, however, recommended that the government should start focusing their attention on these mid-tier colleges because of the opportunity they open up for their students. Although they are not the flagship universities of the state nor the elite institutions, the statistics speak for themselves that they are doing something right.
