The Missing "One-Offs": The Hidden Supply of High-Achieving, Low Income Students
From 2013
Abstract:
We show that the vast majority of low-income high achievers do not apply to any selective college. This is despite the fact that
selective institutions typically cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the two-year and nonselective four-year institutions to which they actually apply.
Moreover, low-income high achievers have no reason to believe they will fail at selective institutions since those who do apply are admitted and graduate at high rates. We demonstrate that low-income high achievers application behavior differs greatly from that of their high-income counterparts with similar achievement. The latter generally follow experts advice to apply to
several peer, a few reach, and a couple of safety colleges.
We separate low-income high achievers into those whose application behavior is similar to that of their high-income counterparts (achievement-typical) and those who apply to no selective institutions (income-typical). We show that income-typical students are not more disadvantaged than the achievement-typical students. However, in contrast to the achievement-typical students,
income-typical students come from districts too small to support selective public high schools, are not in a critical mass of fellow high achievers, and are unlikely to encounter a teacher who attended a selective college.
We demonstrate that widely used policiescollege admissions recruiting, campus visits, college mentoring programsare likely to be ineffective with income-typical students. We suggest that effective policies must depend less on geographic concentration of high achievers.
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf