The Advantage of Wealth

Increasing the Wealthy Gap

The Hamilton Project, a think tank based out of Washington, DC, conducted a study concerning spending on education, based on income. The study compares how much is personally invested, by the parents, of both high and low-income families. The result of the study shows a gap of a $7,700 on average in spending. The impact of such spending has shown a result in the education gap growing between rich and poor kids. The so-called “leveling ground” of education is made even more uneven. It projects the idea that attainable skills and education for certain income groups is now out of reach.

What this trend seems to be accomplishing, is speeding up the gap between the rich and poor, not just increasing it. The study, which went back to the 1970’s to gather data on this subject, shows an increase of four times the amount spent on education, by the wealthy. It could be argued, that the peripheral effects of being wealthy have caused exponential growth for the rich. In other words, being wealthy means having the ability to spend more time with kids, possessing the education to advance the child outside the classroom, and the option to add extra-curricular activities making the child more competitive. These luxuries can be contrasted to the obstacles that face the poor: such as a parent working two or more jobs, poorly educated parents, unaware of how to enrich the child inside the home, food or shelter being in question. These stressors can have the opposite effect. Children of poor families could do worse that expected due to their stressors entering the classroom. This is, of course, opinion and not supported by the study.

The study, and lead researcher Professor Michael Greenstone, did develop suggestions to help reduce the gap. He suggests increasing federal grants for low-income families with the additional support of assisting in the application process. He also suggests proactively providing low-income, higher achievers, with more college options typically not pursued due to income. The suggestions are valid and realistic options for low-income students and their families. It will be interesting to see more of these suggestions arise and implemented, to see if they can close the income gap.