Giving Compass' Take:

• Richard Whitmire explains techniques that schools across the country are using to help underrepresented students graduate from college. 

• How can funders work to boost and improve programs like these?

• Learn more about first-generation college grads. 

Boosting education equity should be the starting point for a solution aimed at narrowing the nation’s widening — and alarming — gaps in income, wealth and education.

That solution, though, has proven elusive, with the college success rate for many groups of low-income minority students remaining roughly flat, leaving students from low-income families no more likely to earn degrees than mediocre-scoring students from well-off families.

Now, however, there’s evidence that we know how to start fixing this. And it’s likely that the fix can be ramped up quickly. The recent embarrassing scandal over rich folks allegedly rigging the admissions system for their children’s benefit offers a tailwind for efforts to boost education equity.

The overall solution is actually three solutions. Think of them as separate streams that, if they reach confluence, could form a river of positive change.

First, some high schools around the country, many of them high-performing charters that serve urban neighborhoods, have figured out ways to turn their alumni into successful degree-earners. Some charter networks boast college success rates four times beyond what would be expected, taking into account the students they serve.

Second, advocacy groups have gotten really smart about leveraging their interventions to improve graduation rates. Organizations such as College Advising Corps offer smart college counseling that uses data to send high school graduates to colleges that will help them earn degrees — and avoid the colleges that are likely to fail them.

Third and finally, growing numbers of colleges and universities are trying a lot harder to ensure that first-generation students who enroll actually walk away with degrees. One simple but effective strategy: boost the number of high-performing transfer students from community colleges, which are home to many students from low-income families.

Read the full article about ways schools are helping underrepresented students by Richard Whitmire at The Hechinger Report.