The surge in poorer students going to college hasn’t led to any meaningful change in the number of college graduates from poorer backgrounds. Among children born to low-wealth families in the 1970s, 11.3 percent went on to earn a bachelor’s degree. Among the same category of children born in the 1980s, only 11.8 percent did.Trying to help such students stay in school and actually graduate has led to hiring dozens of non-teaching "administrators" at virtually every college and university. It's their job to hold student hands, deliver pep talks, and generally coach them in how to graduate.
The evidence Leonhardt cites suggests hiring these individuals, while ineffectual, is a way higher ed. institutions virtue signal. It shows the campuses recognize the problem and are spending money trying to solve it - when the poor/minority graduates everyone seeks fail to materialize.
What absolutely nobody wants to hear is that turning these kids into college graduates is a "silk purse from sow's ear" problem. One that is unsolvable with existing methodology and without violating the kids' civil rights.
