Born to Win, Schooled to Lose: Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be

1. By: Anthony P. Carnevale, Megan L. Fasules,
Michael C. Quinn, & Kathryn Peltier Campbell
MAY 15, 2019

2. In America, it’s often better
to be rich than smart
• The most talented young people are sorted into haves
and have-nots long before college.
• An affluent kindergartner with bottom-half test scores
still has a 7 in 10 chance of reaching high
socioeconomic status (SES) as a young adult.
• Meanwhile, a disadvantaged kindergartener with top-
half test scores only has a 3 in 10 chance.
• Additional disparities are apparent by race and
ethnicity: Black and Latino tenth graders with top-half
math scores are less likely to earn a college degree
than their White and Asian peers.
2

3. Advantaged children benefit from
their parents’ habits and education
• The highest-SES families spend almost five times as much on
enrichment activities as the lowest-SES families.
• Almost all children from the highest-SES families have at least one
parent with some postsecondary education, compared to less than
one third of children from the lowest-SES families.
3 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

4. By the first year of school, academic
gaps are already large by SES
4 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
• The skills children begin developing at birth lay the groundwork for
the math skills they are expected to possess in kindergarten.
• Kindergartners from high-SES families are more likely than their low-
SES peers to score in the top half on math assessments.

5. • Advantaged students have resources that help keep them on track in school,
while their peers who don’t are more likely to fall behind and stay behind.
• Kindergartners in higher SES quartiles with bottom-half math scores are much
more likely to move into the top half of all students by eighth grade.
• By contrast, low-SES students who start off with top-half math scores are less
likely to maintain those high scores throughout K-12.
5 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Affluence affords a complex safety net
Source: Georgetown University Center
on Education and the Workforce analysis
of Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-
Kindergarten (public use data), 2006.
Note: Columns may not add to 100
percent due to rounding.

6. • Black kindergartners with
bottom-half math scores
are much less likely than
their White, Asian, and
Latino peers to have top-
half math scores by
eighth grade.
• These racial and ethnic
gaps in test scores
continue and are
cemented as students
move through high school.
6 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Relative affluence has a more protective
effect for White than for Black students

7. Achievement patterns are largely set
in high school
7 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
• Most tenth-graders who score in the bottom math quartile maintain their low
grades through twelfth grade.
• Improving scores in high school is uncommon, but highest-SES students are
twice as likely as lowest-SES students to move into a higher math quartile.
Source: Georgetown University Center on
Education and the Workforce analysis of
the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002
(public use data), 2012.

8. • Lowest-SES tenth graders with top math scores are less likely to immediately
enroll in a college than highest-SES tenth graders with bottom math scores.
• Lowest-SES tenth graders are less likely than highest-SES students to
complete college 10 years later—regardless of their high school math scores.
8 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Highest-SES students are more likely
to attend and complete college

9. • White and Asian tenth
graders are more likely
than Black and Latino
tenth graders to earn a
college degree in 10
years, no matter their
high school math scores.
9 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Chances of completing college also
vary by race and ethnicity

10. • With policy changes,
education can be the
great equalizer.
• Students with similar
scores across class and
race and ethnicity would
have similar outcomes if
education were the lever
we need it to be.
10 Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce
Policy Recommendations

11. 11
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