Why returns to college lower for lower income kids

[Anonymous]

Interesting article. No paywall when I posted.
Turns out the returns to college gap between kidds from lower income and higher income families has grown. Lower income kids get lower returns attributed to
1) public teaching oriented (not research flagship) schools have declined in quality measures
2) lower income kids disproportionately go to community colleges and for profit universities
3) choice of major...higher income kids made switch from humanities majors to more lucrative ones while lower income kids stick more with humanities.

This latter one surprised me.

[Anonymous]

Oops here is the article from NBER sorry
https://www.nber.org/digest/202508/changing-distribution-return-higher-education

[Anonymous]

Alert the equity hucksters.

[Anonymous]

perhaps because they cannot afford to return, or the family requires them to be at home earning an income or helping take care of siblings or elderly family?

Not that shocking really