Giving Compass' Take:

• Julia Freeland Fisher explains what students need in order to access opportunity: social capital, financial capital, and human capital.

• How can funders help those most in need get all of the support they need to access opportunity? 

• Learn how to help disadvantaged students build social capital. 

Lately I’ve been writing a lot about networks. Students’ access to new networks is the topic of a book my husband and I published this summer called Who You Know: Unlocking Innovations that Expand Students’ Networks.

We wrote the book because we saw relationships as a critical—and too often underestimated —asset in the opportunity equation that education systems need to start innovating around if they have any hope of remaining society’s great equalizer.

But that is not to say that networks alone are a cure-all to the complex landscape of opportunity in America. At best that interpretation would be simplistic and inaccurate. At worst it’s an insidious way to avoid confronting structural impediments to improving educational outcomes and shoring up ladders for social mobility. That’s because core as it may be to getting by and getting ahead, social capital—who you know—is not the only asset that matters. Financial capital—what you own and can buy—and human capital—what you know and can do—matter too. All three forms of capital are crucial ingredients to opportunity.

Read the full article about accessing opportunity by Julia Freeland Fisher at Christensen Institute.