
Some of our best stories on how colleges and universities are helping — or failing to help — students move up the socioeconomic ladder. For our special series on this topic, Broken Ladder, visit here.
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News
For First-Generation Students, a Disappearing ‘College Experience’ Could Have Grave Consequences
As on-campus study and life fall victim to Covid-19, experts say such students will suffer as a result. -
News
Covid-19 Robs First-Generation Graduates — and Their Families — of a Meaningful Milestone
For one such graduate, Andrew Pérez, commencement marked an accomplishment for his whole family. Now there would be no ceremony, no cap and gown, no pomp and circumstance. -
The Review
Anatomists of Melancholy in the Age of Coronavirus
Anne Case and Angus Deaton diagnose the deadly despair that arises from the lack of a college degree. The current crisis only exacerbates the problem. -
News
More College Students May Need Remedial Help This Fall. Can They Get It Online?
Students in remedial courses are more likely to struggle with virtual instruction. But a return to in-person classes is far from guaranteed. -
News
Students Without Laptops, Instructors Without Internet: How Struggling Colleges Move Online During Covid-19
For teaching experts in some of the nation’s poorest communities, the pandemic has meant 18-hour days and worries about the economic and emotional health of their instructors and students. -
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DEBT CRISIS
Who Holds America’s $1.5-Trillion Student-Loan Debt?
Over the past decade, student-loan debt has ballooned to an unprecedented size. What does the data say about who holds America’s $1.5-trillion student-loan debt? -
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The Review
How Companies Kill Higher Education’s Promise of Social Equity
Presidents must do more to confront employer bias. -
Advice
Colleges Struggle to Serve Millions of Dropouts. Have These Men Cracked the Code?
College Unbound removes barriers and empowers students to drive the curriculum. But can it succeed on a larger scale? -
News
College Fairs Might Seem Ho-Hum. Until You Meet the Rural Students at This One.
This regional gathering attracts teenagers from small-town high schools that few admissions officers ever visit. Here’s how it changed one student’s perspective on college. -
News
This Woman Goes Door to Door to Steer Students to College
A pilot federal program embeds guidance counselors in housing projects to help chart students’ paths to college. As one of those counselors discovered, sometimes the biggest obstacles are cultural. -
The Review
Is Meritocracy Hurting Higher Education?
Social mobility has stalled, and the public is losing trust. Time for universities to rethink their role in American life? -
The Review
Can This Man Change How Elite Colleges Treat Low-Income Students?
Anthony Jack beat the odds. His research focuses on those who don’t. -
News
How Colleges Give Students a Flawed Sense of Living Costs
The federal government requires them to tally the price of off-campus housing, health care, transportation, and other expenses. But an analysis suggests that those estimates are often wide of the mark. -
News
How Rising College Costs and Student Debt Contribute to a Social-Mobility ‘Crisis’
Higher ed is a weaker engine of mobility than it once was, and the solution lies more with board members than with debt cancellation or other populist slogans, writes a former university president in a new book. -
Financial Aid
Public Flagships Are Offering More Middle-Income Scholarships. What Gives?
The cost of a higher education is weighing ever more heavily on the minds of Americans. Selective flagship universities appear to be getting the message. -
How Colleges Deepen Inequality
America likes to see itself as a meritocracy, and college as an engine of social mobility. In reality, writes Richard V. Reeves, “higher education has become a powerful means for perpetuating class divisions.” How did that happen, and what can colleges do about it? -
The Review
The University Is Not an Aristocracy
So why do we value selectivity over social mobility? -
News
Engine of Inequality
College plays a role in reinforcing and even widening the gap between haves and have-nots. Read The Chronicle’s 2016 series exploring how.