Author: Matt Bruenig

For one reason or another, poor kids do worse in school than rich kids. Consider for instance this breakdown of SAT scores divided by parental income: This graph tells us two important things. First, poor kids do indeed do worse on the main college admissions exam. Second, differential enrollment rates in college probably have to… Continue reading Why do poor kids do worse in school?

In my previous post, I argued that it was misleading to represent the issues of recent college graduates (e.g. student debt) as the issues of the younger generation. I pieced together some rough data from the Census and the National Center for Education Statistics that tended to show that the majority of youth are not… Continue reading More data on the student debt debate

I hate to beat a dead horse on student debt, but I keep seeing unchecked fallacy after unchecked fallacy filling the blogs and news copy. In one prevalent fallacy, writers and commentators refer to college graduates as “the younger generation” or something similar. That is, they cast student debt as a generational issue affecting the… Continue reading Stop saying “the younger generation” when referring to recent graduates

Recently much was made of total student debt reaching $1 trillion. Although sensational, the number is not terribly meaningful unless it is accompanied by information about how many borrowers there are, what the median debt total is, how the debt is distributed, and so on. I’ve gone over that before; so I wont repeat it… Continue reading Professional degree holders have the highest debt