Odds are stacked against low-income Americans seeking a college degree

ABOUT THIS SERIES: The American middle class is floundering {sic, you mean "foundering"}, and it has been for decades. The Post examines the mystery of what’s gone wrong and shows what the country must focus on to get the economy working for everyone again.

Chapter 1: Why America’s middle class is lost
Chapter 2: The devaluation of the American middle class
Coming Tuesday: The black hole for our best and brightest

Odds are stacked against low-income Americans seeking a college degree

The college trap that keeps people poor

Written by Jim Tankersley
Photos by Bonnie Jo Mount
Video by Whitney Shefte
Graphics by Darla Cameron, Laura Stanton
Produced by Emily Yount, Dwuan June
Published on December 15, 2014

....
The American economy has stopped working the way it used to for millions of Americans. The path from poverty to the middle class has changed — now, it runs through higher education.

In 1965, a typical man whose education stopped after four years of high school earned a salary 15 percent higher than the median male worker. ... By 2012, a high-school-only grad was earning 20 percent less than the median. The swing has been even more dramatic for women who stopped their education after high school: They earned almost 40 percent more than the median female salary in 1965 and 24 percent less in 2012.

College graduates, meanwhile, have widened their income advantage over high school grads, as several recent studies demonstrate — including one from MIT economist David Autor, who found that the annual income gap between a college-educated family and a high-school-educated one grew by $28,000 over the past 35 years, after adjusting for inflation. Nine out of 10 children who grow up at the bottom of the income ladder but then graduate from college move up to a higher economic bracket as adults, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Less than half of kids without a degree make the same leap.

That creates a paradox: Being poor is a big impediment to getting the education that lifts you out of poverty.