1) The US has high income inequality, with the top 1% earning 40% of income and the bottom 90% seeing little growth from 1966-2011. Higher education plays a role, as 55% of top earners have degrees vs only 8% of bottom earners. 2) Education leads to higher lifetime earnings - $1.1M without HS, $1.8M with associates, $2.8M with masters. As jobs require more skills, education is key to economic opportunity. 3) However, high college costs block access for many lower-income students. More support is needed to promote equal access to education and reduce inequality.

1. HIGHER EDUCATION : MERIT BASED OR MONEY BASED ?
The United States, as the world's leading GDP of $15,684,800,000,000 apparently has its
40% of the economy depend on the top one percent Americans, according to the Federal Reserve
Bank. The slogan of Uncle Sam that "all men have equal opportunity" is then more doubted due
to a report by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Johnston, that says the bottom 90% of
Americans income grew only $59 from 1966 to 2011, while the top 10% Americans rose by
$116,071. Perhaps the finding by Steve Hargreaves in CNN Money could help trace the origin of
this huge social status gap; as Hargreaves defined rich as the top 25% income and poor for the
bottom 25%, he found there are 55% of the rich who received 4 year degree education compared
to only 8% of the poor. While the US is a home to 45 of the world's best universities, the high
cost of attending college, which averaged $22,092 in 2011 (US Dept. of Education), is clearly
blocking the dream of 25% of Americans whose annual income are less than $30,000 (DeNavas-
Walt).
Education is a great investment to have a better job and thus a better life. A study found
that although men could work instead of attending school, there is a progressive relationship
between work-life earnings and level of education (Laurent). For non-high school graduate
American men, the work life earnings are $1.1 million, for a person with an associate's degree,
the earnings are $1.8 million, and $2.8 million for a person with master's degree. In addition, a
study also shows that since 2008, the US economy has shifted from an industrial to an
information based economy, and therefore there is higher demand for highly educated workers
while lower skilled laborers are in less demand and make lower wages. Thus, these studies prove
how as the rich families educate and send their kids to higher education, they can earn higher
income, whereas the poor cannot send their kids to higher education. As a result, their earning
power is limited, and thus creating an even bigger gap. Since the top universities nowadays favor
the rich, changing the educational system would be an efficient solution to stabilize the
inequality of economic outcome in the US by generating more well educated lower-income
people. In other words, the lower income people could gain higher salary jobs and thus
narrowing inequality rate.
In order to help students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to access a good
education, government need to support them financially. Currently, the US government provides
$125 billion of merit and need based financial aid which include grants, work-study, and loans
(Schweitzer) . According to a recent survey by The Hamilton Project, Caroline Hoxby and Sarah
Turner have offered a critique that on average only 10% of the low-income students benefit from
the financial aid. According to Ross Douthat, a writer at The Atlantic, the problem is that the

2. financial aid that is given at the early admissions programs are mostly taken by the wealthy
students whose guidance counselor knows about it. In addition, because the rich kids have better
facility to study, the merit-based scholarships that only rely on test scores instead of the obstacles
would not work for the lower socioeconomic students.
Top universities with credentials guarantee students to gain better jobs after they
graduate. This guarantee is greater for the legacy students, or those who are a family of an
alumni of that institution. The problem is, according to research by Harvard University, legacy
status at 30 highly selective colleges increases the probability of admission by 23.3 percent and
45.1 percent increase if the parent attended the college (Ashburn). On the perspective of the
university, legacy status increases the loyalty to that university and thus allows more donations
received especially when that university does not rely entirely on public funding. The US News
recorded that between 2011 and 2012, the financial endowment to the University of Michigan-
Ann Arbor was $7.6 million while to the Harvard University was $30 billion. Similarly, on the
perspective of the rich parents, legacy status is a great way to achieve their ambitions to send
their kids to an elite university. Indeed, Lacy Crawford, an independent college application
counselor for 15 years; demonstrates that "If a parent went to a college, it’s a legacy school and it
goes at the top of the list [of the college application]". Similarly, the New York Times also
reported that Princeton's class of 2015 opened up 33% spot to children of alumni, compared with
Harvard who admits 30%, and Yale for 20-25% (Paul).
Most students demand to go to good ranked university. Conversely, every top universities
want to keep their ranking because that is how they get more funding. The Atlantic magazine
states that the schools inclined to the wealthy students to keep its ranking high because the
rankings rely on statistics such as average SAT scores, alumni giving and financial resources that
are easily satisfied by the high income family. Indeed, the chance for American to get bachelor's
degree by twenty-four years old is one in two for family with annual income over $90,000, but
one in ten if the family's income is between $35,000 and $61,000 (Douthat).
The rich students have such brilliant personal statement as well as SAT scores because they
could afford a lot of courses and some students even get their personal statement done by paying
a personal counselor of $7,500 (Crawford).
The idea of balancing individual income gap in the US is not another form of socialism,
but rather a way to promote a more fair national society, where there is no control by the
preexisting hierarchies. The huge social status gap that is in tune with the disparity of education
opportunity proves the importance of education in contributing to a balanced economy.

3. Education offers a direct solution to the root cause of income gap, that is it provides laborers
with the appropriate skill that gives them higher paying jobs. Education has a long term effect as
it builds a more highly skilled society. Government's promotion on equal education opportunity
is meant to shift up the annual earnings for lower socioeconomics students. Though impossible
to fully close the US' huge social gap, education is at least the fundamental basis to bring down
the income inequality gap in the US.
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