Money Does Matter

If you want to argue that money doesn’t matter when it comes to how our students learn and perform, and thus where they get into college and what jobs they get, guess again.  It does!  “That’s garbage!” you say.  “How much money a person has does not effect how smart they are, how hard they work, or the grades they get.”  One might not thinks so, but apparently it does.  As the chart below demonstrates, there is a direct correlation between wealth and performance on the SAT test, that simply mean, the kids that come from wealthy families will do better on the SAT than those kids that come from families with less wealth.

 

 

I admit it.  The first time I saw this chart I thought, “You have got to be kidding me!”  In no way, shape or form did I believe that such a correlation existed.  If you had told me that kids from wealthy families scored better than kids from poor homes, I would have agreed 100%.  However, in my mind the middle class kids would most certainly perform at the same level as those from homes of privilege.   But that is not what the results show.  The more wealth a family has, the better their children will do on the SAT.  There is most definitely an advantage here that adds to the continued inequality in our country, and perhaps serves as a barrier for many to “live the American dream.” 

It isn’t too difficult to understand how the children of the wealthy have an advantage.  They go to private schools with highly paid and highly qualified instructors.  They live in homes that value education and provide learning opportunities out of the classroom from an early age.  They are under a great deal of pressure from their parents to succeed and to continue the family’s success.  Opportunities exist for them to prep for tests like the SAT and ACT.  The list goes on and on. 

When you look at the percentage of students who attend the elite universities, the entrance requirements are very high.  To get in a prospective student must have SAT and/or ACT scores very top end.  And since they are also very expensive, it only makes sense that there is a disproportionate number of students from wealthy backgrounds in attendance.  Sure, there are examples of students from poor homes – heck, even homeless kids – that beat the odds and get into Harvard.  But they are more than the exception to the rule.  Harvard and Yale turn down more valedictorians than most schools have apply, and most of those rejected students are from middle-class families. 

The Puritan work ethic that has been a cornerstone of this country may not be enough to level the playing field.  Wealth is power, and from the data, it would appear that it will be sustained based on how these students perform on an important standardized assessment.  There has been a lot of conversation about the 1%, the growing percentage of children living in poverty in this country, and the huge disparity in the distribution of wealth.  Education remains the best bet for a person to improve their social standing, but it must be recognized that until we have a more equal distribution of wealth, education may not be enough.