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Dear Commons Community,

Income inequality has taken the center stage in our country and around the world as a defining socio-economic issue affecting many of our institutions including higher education. Income inequality in higher education has widened over the last 45 years. As reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education, that’s the case made in a report just released by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education and the University of Pennsylvania’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy.

The report, “Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States,” uses government data to illustrate disparities in the educational experience of students from different family-income backgrounds. It also includes strategies for making higher education more equitable.

Above is one of the many charts featured in the report. It illustrates that low-income students enroll disproportionately in for-profit and two-year public colleges, while high-income students enroll disproportionately in colleges that grant doctoral degrees.

The report concludes with sixteen recommendations for widening equity of participation in higher education.

Tony