A new study on college completion rates among students from low- and high-income families may have seriously bolstered President Obama's free community college proposal.
According to the Associated Press, bachelor degree completion among students from wealthy families skyrocketed, whereas the rate among low-income families barely grew. The President wants to make two-year associate's degree programs free at community college, often the best option for students from low-income families with the potential to attend costly four-year institutions.
From the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy (AHED), the new study found just nine percent of students aged 24 years and younger from families earning $34,160 a year or less completed a bachelor's degree program. This rate has risen just three percent since 1970.
Among the same age group, students from families earning $108,650 a year or more have seen their completion rate jump from 44 percent to 77 percent.
"It's really quite amazing how big the differences have become between those from the highest and lowest family incomes," Laura Perna, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the AHED's executive director, told the AP.
President Obama may be pulling out all the stops to get the GOP-controlled Congress to come around on his proposal. Republican lawmakers have hesitated at the proposal's requirement of $60 million of taxpayer money over the next 10 years.
Perna told the AP there are several reasons for such a widening gap, but the overarching theme seems to be that money grants access to resources. Due to a poor economy, one that is only currently on the mend, the federal government and individual states have not been able to provide as much financial aid to students as in years past.
Yet with the financial burden increasing for families paying for college, a bachelor's degree has been proven to result in higher mid- and late-career salaries.
Said Perna, "Students only have so many resources they can use to pay the costs."
