> Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively.
They're saying social mobility (up or down) is attainable for 85% of each group. And graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices...
The linked PDF's conclusions and figures gives a bit more context; the numbers are not 85%. From the PDF, rich means the top 20th percentile of income, whereas poor is the bottom 20th percentile.
For the dropouts, you only have a 46% chance of mobility if you're poor. For the college graduates, only 63% of the rich will be downward bound.
Another interesting bit: a poor dropout is more likely to remain poor as a rich dropout has to remain in the top three quintiles of income. They also have only a one percent chance of bucking the trends and becoming rich.
A rich college graduate has almost 2x the chance of remaining rich as a poor graduate has of getting rich.
Also, the country heatmap of percentages of people who achieve mobility is very telling as well.
In all, college appears to be a good equalizer for mobility; but given that most people want to be upwardly mobile, you probably don't want to be poor to begin with. Also, don't be born out of wedlock or black. If you really want the best chance of living the "American Dream", your best chance is to be born to white, rich, continuously married parents, and go to college.
> A rich college graduate has almost 2x the chance of remaining rich as a poor graduate has of getting rich.
This is all super fuzzy and almost impossible to interpret. It sounds to me like people are becoming rich at some rate, and staying rich at a higher rate. Seems like it would lead to everyone being rich, in the end (though these are quintile numbers, so it's a relative ranking, so I assume some other outcomes are available that make things balance).
Yeah, I think the author is drawing the wrong conclusions by comparing two variables. It looks like, from the graph, there's some staying power within the top 20%, but that still leaves a great amount of mobility for college graduates.
>graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices...
Perhaps, but completing college is generally considered to be a better choice than is dropping out of high school. And it is generally associated with better decision-making and better outcomes.
Whether it should be or whether it's changing may be subject to debate, but we have generally rewarded that choice in the past, all things being equal.
But one of the big ways in which English-speaking countries are dropping the ball on equality is by making everything depend on university degrees.
We lose the opportunity for people to rise by becoming good plumbers (and then becoming owners of growing plumbing related buisinesses). Instead we try to fake equality by getting more and more students into soft degrees where the graduates still end up working at McDonalds.
The 1% write the rules, so whilst its illegal to ethnically cleanse its not illegal to financially cleanse people. Divide and conquer its starts with education and continues on throughout life.
> Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively.
They're saying social mobility (up or down) is attainable for 85% of each group. And graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices...