Photo Courtesy of Queens College/Dennis Wong
According to the study, Queens College has made a larger impact on its students than virtually every other university in the country—moving students to the top fifth of the income distribution from the bottom fifth.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Five borough colleges have been ranked among the top schools moving students up the economic ladder, according to the results of a recent study by the Equality of Opportunity Project.
Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, Queens College, York College, St. John’s University, and LaGuardia Community College cracked the top 40—Vaughn was ranked Number 1—out of 2,200 U.S. colleges and universities that were part of the study.
Using Internal Revenue Service data, the analysis of the schools compared parental income for about 30 million students born between 1980 and 1991, to these same students’ income as college-educated adults. The EOP study ranked the five borough schools in the top tier of all colleges in moving students to the top fifth from the bottom fifth of the income distribution.
“Albeit this study is but one indicator, it powerfully demonstrates that when it comes to economic mobility, Queens College—approaching its eightieth anniversary of serving the people of New York—is making a larger impact than virtually every other college in the country,” said Queens College President Félix Matos Rodríguez. “When our students—rich in ambition, talent, and creativity—are given the advantage of a high-quality, world-class faculty, they become the backbone of our city and state workforce.”
Queens College noted that the City University of New York system moved almost six times as many low-income students into the middle class and beyond as did all eight Ivy League campuses, Duke, M.I.T., Stanford, and Chicago—combined.
According to Queens College, the Equality of Opportunity Project is a think tank comprising a group of economists and other social scientists that uses big data—extremely large data sets which, through analysis, can reveal patterns, trends, and associations—to report on how each college in America affects its students’ prospects of upward mobility.
