Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 36

Bachelor’s Degree Attainment Rate
(moving 3-year average)

tests compared to their peers in other countries.40 In low-income school districts, where the
majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and breakfast, lower test scores
reflect the different socioeconomic realities of these children’s lives.41
College can make a world of difference in equalizing inequalities that begin at birth. More
than half of children born into the poorest 20 percent of the population (the bottom quintile)
who complete a four-year college degree make it to the middle quintile or higher.42
But children from low-income
families have to foot more of the
Figure i.11 Estimated Baccalaureate Degree Attainment by Age 24
bill for their postsecondary edu
by Family Income Quartile, 1970-2009
cation than their counterparts a
90%
generation ago. While the cost
82.4%
of post-secondary education has
80
soared, their parents’ incomes
have not kept pace with inflation.
70
On average, low-income students
spend the equivalent of 72 percent
Top Income Quartile
60
of their family’s entire income on
college costs.43 Government grants
50
to low-income students have not
kept pace with inflation, nor has
40.2%
40
the number of grants awarded kept
36.1%
pace with the population of stuThird Income Quartile
30
dents applying.44 These are some
of the reasons that the college
20
16.5%
completion rates of low-income
Second Income Quartile
14.9%
students have been stagnant for
10
the last 40 years, in contrast to stu10.9%
8.3%
dents from high-income families,
6.2%
Bottom Income Quartile
0
whose completion rates have more
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
than doubled over that same time
period.45 See Figure i.11. One in
Source: Postsecondary Education Opportunity (2010), “Family Income and Educational
Attainment 1970 to 2009.”
five American households is carrying student loan debt, with students from low-income families much more likely to owe significant amounts of money for
their educational costs. But this is also a problem that crosses class and income boundaries;
the total dollar amount of student loan debt has quadrupled in just a decade.
The middle class has been hit hard by the Great Recession, especially by the collapse in
housing values. It used to be that reaching the middle class meant arriving somewhere safe
and secure. That was symbolized by home ownership, the American Dream. The housing
bubble that burst in 2006 and sent the economy spiraling into the depths of the Great Recession made nightmares out of many American Dreams. For most people in the middle class,
their largest source of personal wealth is their home equity. From 2007 to 2010, the median
wealth of white households fell by 36 percent, the median wealth of African American
households by 50 percent, and the median wealth of Latino households by 86 percent.46
26?Introduction

n

Bread for the World Institute