Giving Compass' Take:

• Jim McCorkell argues that instead of telling low-income students not to attend college, we should inform students about the risk, rewards, and best ways to navigate college. 

• How can funders help to increase access to information and resources about the possible risks and rewards of college?

• Learn how college counseling is helping low-income, first-generation students. 

The message that college is “no longer worth it” is not only false but also dangerous for America’s low-income students. I was fortunate to have a village of adults telling me that college was worth it. Not all children are so lucky, with many coming from high schools with too few counselors and too little advice about which institutions to attend and the merits of a postsecondary degree.

Each day brings a new public opinion poll, op-ed or article questioning whether college is worth it. Fifty-seven percent of working-class voters in America now believe a college degree will “result in more debt and little likelihood of landing a good paying job.”

Although such statistics raise legitimate concerns, they do not paint the full picture. On the whole, a college degree remains the surest bet for social and economic advancement. The economic returns of college are especially profound for low-income students, and yet they are far more susceptible to college avoidance than their more affluent peers, who are likely to go to college anyway.

Such views are hugely problematic for those of us hoping to improve economic mobility in the United States. Almost all the job and wage growth now goes to people with some form of postsecondary education. Many studies show that a four-year college graduate will earn between $500,000 and $1.2 million more over his or her lifetime than those with only high school diplomas, or those who dropped out of high school, like my own parents.

During the Great Recession, unemployment for high school graduates was substantially higher than it was for college graduates, and during the ensuing recovery virtually all of the new jobs went to college graduates.

But like most things, with this reward comes risk, and many students — low-income students in particular — are not well-informed about the best ways to select a college. Research shows that students do best when they enroll in the highest-quality schools that accept them, yet far too many low-income students fail to consider more selective colleges, “undermatching” into  less demanding schools with significantly lower graduation rates.

Cost, of course, also can deter and intimidate low-income or first-generation students who have no direct experience with the benefits of college.

Read the full article about giving college advice to low-income students by Jim McCorkell at The Hechinger Report.