A college degree is, in most cases, the key to more money and a more comfortable standard of living. But that pathway to higher earnings is more 1to some than others: A lot of leading colleges do not enroll a lot of low-income students, and as a result, they're not2very many students from low-income households into the middle and upper classes. 3, though strategies for enrolling and preserving low-income students are usually mentioned, they can be tough to 4 at scale.
Dozens of top colleges and universities have more students from the top 1 percent of the income scale than the 5 60 percent. And that's a problem if colleges hope to escape the common 6that they are little more than a finishing school for the elite (精英).
But there are institutions — a lot of them — that have strong track records of 7 the socioeconomic fortunes of students. If higher education is supposed to be the great equalizer (平衡器), these institutions — from community colleges to public regional four-year colleges — are the ones that are doing the most work.
Colleges should be 8recruiting and enrolling low-income students — and that means more than targeting ads to 9 students on social media. It means a commitment to going where they are — areas that a lot of schools do not typically recruit — and publicize the process of going to college. Then they should be supporting students with 10 when the students get to campus — whether it's writing centers, generous financial aid packages, or simply sympathetic academic advisors who perhaps came from low-income backgrounds themselves. And it is also preparing students for jobs after college and building relationships with businesses that 11the process of finding post-graduation employment for students, especially for those whose parents don't have their own professional 12.
Pace ranks first among private colleges in motivating its students from the lowest levels of the income scale and into the middle and upper class. There are a lot of ways in which people of privilege (特权) 13 their college years or having unpaid internships (实习) or having the social capital to get certain jobs. But colleges can fill those 14, particularly for low-income students, helping students get jobs, or sustaining them with programs that help them land paid internships with top companies. We can provide strong networks through faculty and staff as well to help a new generation, a new, socioeconomically 15 generation, achieve the American dream.
