When I started College Summit fifteen years ago, one of the most compelling displays of inequality in post secondary education was that low income students with good grades went to college at a rate lower than affluent students with poor grades. College Summit was in part founded to help create a college-going culture to better support these college-capable lower income students.

According to a recent editorial in Money magazine, editor Pat Regnier acknowledges that this work is far from finished. The distance between lower income students and college success is getting wider as the economy promises increased financial instability. Why is that? That low income students have less support financially is obvious, but what about support in the classroom and at school? At home? 

In writing “…more investment in higher ed could boost the next generation’s prosperity. Expanding education--letting there be more winners--can help the economy grow, which is good for us all.” Regnier reminds us that the issue has also become a key economic one for our nation.  While calling for more investment in higher ed is a natural conclusion, I'd suggest that more strategic investments in high school reform can have the same, if not more, effect on increasing college-going.

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