Income Inequality In Education

Income inequality in the United States is directly correlated with education decline over the past 40 years. People with lower incomes tend to have less opportunities for a good education than those with higher incomes. American education, when compared to other nations, has dropped dramatically due largely to a rise in income inequality since the 1970s. Not only has economic inequality lead to academic decline and disparity, but academic disparity has also tended to lead to further economic inequality. Because of this, improving the American education system can effectively decrease the income gap. If done correctly, the usage of an alternative school model, specifically the private school model, rather than the usual public school model can reduce economic inequality. With the growth of income inequality since the 1970s, there has been a growth in education inequality. According to Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane in Growing income inequality threatens American education, before the 1970s American families with low incomes generally had opportunities to work their way to success. However, “computer-driven technological changes favoring highly educated workers… have produced sharply growing income gaps among families”. Education decline has “accompanied the

One way, as suggested by Buly Cardak in Ability, Education, and Income Inequality, to decrease income inequality is to switch from the public school model to the private school model of education. Cardak finds, through comparison, that, “private education results in higher incomes and less income inequality than observed in the public education model” (239). While, “Public education equalizes opportunities and may reduce inefficiency” (240), Cardak found that income increased and income inequality decreased with private education (267). A possible remedy for a large portion of the income disparity is further usage of private education rather than public