College: Poor students can only stretch so far

The National Center for Children in Poverty states there are about 15 million children living in poverty in America. They have higher absenteeism or leave school altogether because they have to work or care for family members.

Even under such circumstances, we feed these children the idea that if they work twice as hard as their counterparts, they will end up on the same playing field with regard to obtaining a higher education.

We expect children who have to choose between bus fare or lunch money to just work hard. And when they do, we expect them to have the same skills to transition into the higher education system — a system that has become pivotal to equality.

I recently read an article stating that the average student in a low-income family must come up with the equivalent of 72 percent of his family’s household income each year just to pay for college. So realistically, how much harder do we expect these individuals to work?

This story was originally published December 20, 2016 at 4:07 PM with the headline "College: Poor students can only stretch so far."