Giving Compass' Take:

• Melissa Fries at The Hechinger Report gives her take on three ways to help more low-income students get through college: teaching money management, organizing their course load, and receiving guidance about entering a professional career.

• What areas need to be addressed when it comes to the inequality in access to college? 

• Learn about what states are doing to support academically talented low-income students.

More low-income students are getting into college than ever before. That’s the good news. The bad news? They’re not getting out, and those who do often have nowhere to go.

Decades-long efforts to increase college access for low-income students have worked: as of 2016, the enrollment gap between low-income and wealthy students has narrowed to just 16 percentage points. However, graduation rates haven’t increased commensurately: College graduation rates for low-income students increased by only 3 percentage points, from 6 percent to 9 percent, between 1970 and 2015.

Why haven’t graduation rates grown with enrollment rates? Consider the various hurdles to college completion: financial obstacles, family obligations, confusing bureaucracies, academic preparation gaps, and even general changes in plans.

Read the full article about helping low-income students get through college by Melissa Fries at The Hechinger Report