Research Says Actually Where You Go To College Matters

"There are lots of questions for high school grads: Should you go for an associate degree or a bachelor's? A community college or a four-year university? Does it really matter where you go? If we're comparing top-tier schools with open-access ones, then yes. It matters a whole lot, and it has long-lasting effects."

"A study published this week by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce says that African-American and Latino students are underrepresented at the nation's 465 "most well-funded, selective four-year colleges and universities." They're also overrepresented at 3,250 open-access two-year colleges. The researchers, Anthony Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, looked at 4,400 different institutions over 15 years, between 1994 and 2009. Carnevale spoke with Tell Me More's Michel Martin earlier this week. The researchers argue that the "racial stratification" that occurs in K-12 — and that is pervasive in society in general — gets confirmed in college."

"The numbers aren't pretty. Carnevale and Strohl found that more than 240,000 high-achieving high school students who come from low-income families don't go to elite colleges or earn two- or four-year degrees after graduating. And 1 in 4 of these students — about 60,000 — are black or Latino."