A new study conducted by the University of California has shown that its low-income students are able to achieve intergenerational economic mobility within five years of graduating.
The 36 percent among them are able to achieve even greater leaps in economic mobility, which is higher than other 4-year universities in California and the nation.
Beginning at the bottom 20 percent of the national income distribution as teenagers, the students end up making it to the top 20 percent as adults after attending the university, finds the research team that has been gathering and analyzing data to learn more about what happens to students after they complete their degrees.
“Once enrolled at UC, low-income and first-generation students have similar earnings compared to their counterparts. UC is an equalizer for students who come from the bottom 20 percent of income – they go on to earn as much as students who came from middle-income families,” reads the report.
The report further says that 90 percent of the lowest income students succeed in achieving incomes that surpass their parents as a comparison to 50 to 70 percent of middle-income students doing so.
“It’s one of the indicators that shows how a UC education creates economic mobility for its students,” Pamela Brown, UC’s vice president for Institutional Research and Academic Planning, told the UC Board of Regents earlier this month.
The research was done in collaboration with the Equality of Opportunity Project and the CLIMB Initiative.
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