Beginning in first grade, students from low-income families achieve less than financially stable students. Studies conducted by Craig Ramey and Frances Campbell revealed that the intellectual competence of low-income students declined below the national average by age 8 unless educators intervened and worked closely with families to provide additional development opportunities. In addition, many of the same low-income students faced being held back a grade because of low academic performance.
The National Education Association reports that students from low-income families were six times more likely to drop out of school than wealthy classmates. The arrest rates and incarceration rates are significantly higher for high school dropouts, and 80 percent of prisoners in 2001 lacked a high school diploma. Dropouts are also more likely to be unemployed, and those who are employed earn less than students who complete high school.
Poor academic performance among low-income students naturally leads to lower college-attendance rates for those students, but even high-performing students have trouble attending college if they come from a poor background. One study conducted by the Educational Policy Institute revealed that excellent students from high-income families were nearly three times as likely to attend college than low-income students with similar academic performance.
The majority of low-income families have primary earners without a college education, and even though many have a full-time job they still don't make enough money to escape classification as low-income. When the children of low-income parents become low-income adults, the lack of educational opportunity passes on to the next generation. In fact, 74 percent of children whose parents didn't graduate from high school live in a low-income situation.