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You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

nytimes.com

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Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#81

Post by anigbrowl »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #75
stegosaurus wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading my post again I can see why you would think that. I just feel frustrated, that's all. It feels like the premise is just so obviously silly.... like these articles are just fluff. Am I insane? Of course people with wealth do better at everything. It's definitional. That is what wealth is... better schools, better food, better holidays... bigger better more. I don't see the value in continually studying how bad…

That is what wealth is... better schools, better food, better holidays... No, that's consumption . Wealth is ownership of stocks, bonds, REITs, and other investment vehicles. It provides no value whatsoever to the holder until it is consumed. If consumption is what you are worried about, you should focus on consumption inequality , which is vastly lower than either wealth or income inequality and has not risen anywhe…

You can't consume if you don't have any wealth to spend. Conversely, the wealthier one is the lower one's marginal propensity to consume. Very wealthy peoplewho literally have more money than they know what to do with end up investing the rest, but thanks to financialization (among other things) that investment doesn't generate as much demand for labor as it used to, making it harder for people without surplus capital to accumulate wealth.

I know you love to characterize poor people as living high on the hog but it's a bullshit characterization. The least educated are the most vulnerable to the constant imperative to consume with which people are confronted in western society.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#82

Post by netcan »

Retric wrote: post #45
netcan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another perspective on it is (one I think Americans are specifically averse to) is that these are all simply correlated to "class," for some definition for class. This is really another way of saying people follow in their parents footsteps. If you are born into a reference group (parents, uncles, etc.) where most people have children in their early 20s, you are more likely to as well^. It's expected and seems normal…

A lot of this relates to where people grow up. If nobody in your high school expects to go to college then that's a huge influence. Even something as simple as signing up for the SAT's is simply off the radar. Not to mention things like how much education your parent’s friends and coworkers have. Income strongly correlates with zip code so it's hard to figure out the 'root' cause such things.

And all these things have circular correlation. Parents, zip code, school mates, family, income, education...

This is why I think 'class' is a useful approximation. It's some sort of fuzzy unit characterised by these things.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#83

Post by reamworks »

untog wrote: post #64
reamworks wrote: post #63

This is nonsense. If you correct for Socio-economic status, you'll find the best predictor is IQ. You can give a kid an IQ test at age 10 and know whether or not he'll graduate college. Since IQ is heritable, kids from more successful homes will be more successful.

If you correct for Socio-economic status ...which is the entire point

You'll find SES isn't what this is showing--it's IQ differences.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#84

Post by millermp12 »

knowtheory wrote: post #41
interlocutor wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is there no genetic component to this at all? I see parental income and educational achievement mentioned, but not parental genes. Kids who got got good genes from their parents are more likely to go to college. And the parents who gave the kids good genes are likely to have high income. Genetics is the most important ingredient here.

If that were the case you would expect to find that adoption did very weird things to educational attainment in families. And i can't find any evidence to assert that that's the case. "Genetics is the most important ingredient here." is a pretty extraordinary claim, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Look at Plomins studies. Home environment has almost zero correlation.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#85

Post by yummyfajitas »

anigbrowl wrote: post #81
yummyfajitas wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what wealth is... better schools, better food, better holidays... No, that's consumption . Wealth is ownership of stocks, bonds, REITs, and other investment vehicles. It provides no value whatsoever to the holder until it is consumed. If consumption is what you are worried about, you should focus on consumption inequality , which is vastly lower than either wealth or income inequality and has not risen anywhe…

You can't consume if you don't have any wealth to spend. Conversely, the wealthier one is the lower one's marginal propensity to consume. Very wealthy peoplewho literally have more money than they know what to do with end up investing the rest, but thanks to financialization (among other things) that investment doesn't generate as much demand for labor as it used to, making it harder for people without surplus capita…

Conversely, the wealthier one is the lower one's marginal propensity to consume.

I'm glad you agree that stegosaurus is wrong, and that increased wealth inequality isn't a strong driver of consumption inequality or educational inequality.

I know you love to characterize poor people as living high on the hog...

Since you are using the phrase "high on the hog", I think you actually meant to respond to my other post. But that post characterizes rich people (namely Americans) this way, not poor people (Chinese, Indians).

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#86

Post by neuro_imager »

stegosaurus wrote: post #73

Why does it matter? (for reference I went to a decent university having had a poor upbringing). Are we substantially better off in a world with 1000 arbitrary people going to e.g. Cambridge vs one in which 1000 upper class children go? (expand the concept to university in general if you wish). You still have unbalanced outcomes based on what eventually comes down to a lottery of some sort. Even if you choose the abso…

Great line of enquiry.

I suspect it matters because we assume those with attributes such as greater IQ would utilise the education better then a random group of lottery winners. We then assume that that would result in greater communal good.

We also live under the illusion of attempts at fairness rather than perpetuating privilege.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#87

Post by mauricemir »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #74
stegosaurus wrote: post #30

So do we keep bikeshedding and tweaking little levers or do we actually try and fix the fundamental problem? I can't be the only one who is tired of seeing all of these snippets about small parts of a large system. We need to deal with wealth inequality. We live in a world... hell, we live in countries, in cities with 10 orders of magnitude wealth difference. A western person earns 10e6 - 10e7 over a lifetime, revenu…

Savings rates: US 17% India 32% China 51%. Apparently the Chinese manage to save without having that "baseline of living" sucking up all their work. Yet Chinese people earn far less than Americans . How is that possible? It's almost as if your "baseline of living" is actually "living high on the hog as if tomorrow doesn't exist". http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS

Depends on how much disposable money you have not the absolute value plus cultural issues are in play eg putting savings into gold as you don't trust the banks

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#89

Post by stegosaurus »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #74
stegosaurus wrote: post #30

So do we keep bikeshedding and tweaking little levers or do we actually try and fix the fundamental problem? I can't be the only one who is tired of seeing all of these snippets about small parts of a large system. We need to deal with wealth inequality. We live in a world... hell, we live in countries, in cities with 10 orders of magnitude wealth difference. A western person earns 10e6 - 10e7 over a lifetime, revenu…

Savings rates: US 17% India 32% China 51%. Apparently the Chinese manage to save without having that "baseline of living" sucking up all their work. Yet Chinese people earn far less than Americans . How is that possible? It's almost as if your "baseline of living" is actually "living high on the hog as if tomorrow doesn't exist". http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS

The average person in the UK cannot save 51% of net income. It is totally impossible. Difficult even for someone earning above the median wage.

Is paying the rent 'living high on the hog'? I don't get it. Rent alone on a studio flat in loads of places is 10K. If you move away you earn less than you save on the rent.

What's the suggestion? Live 2 to a room? Live in a car?

Theoretically possible if you're determined I suppose.

Re: You Draw It: How Family Income Affects College Chances

#90

Post by yummyfajitas »

stegosaurus wrote: post #89
yummyfajitas wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Savings rates: US 17% India 32% China 51%. Apparently the Chinese manage to save without having that "baseline of living" sucking up all their work. Yet Chinese people earn far less than Americans . How is that possible? It's almost as if your "baseline of living" is actually "living high on the hog as if tomorrow doesn't exist". http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS

The average person in the UK cannot save 51% of net income. It is totally impossible. Difficult even for someone earning above the median wage. Is paying the rent 'living high on the hog'? I don't get it. Rent alone on a studio flat in loads of places is 10K. If you move away you earn less than you save on the rent. What's the suggestion? Live 2 to a room? Live in a car? Theoretically possible if you're determined I…

The 5'th decile in the UK earns a little under double what the 1st decile does. Since the people in the 1st decile aren't dying, that suggests that yes - someone in the 5'th decile could live like a person in the 1'st decile and save 50%.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/25/uk-incomes-how-...

Pretty much every story you could tell to explain this away (e.g., folks in the City earn 2x as much but cost of living is 2x higher) kind of undermine any real inequality story.

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