Over the last several months, headlines in major newspapers have touted that “Fewer Low-Income Students Going to College.”

But according to Sandy Baum and Michael McPherson of Chronicle.com, that’s a bit of mis-information courtesy of a blog by the “Wall Street Journal.” The first sentence of the blog entry, they said, inaccurately described a recent report from the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.

The Advisory Committee actually reported that “among those who had taken Algebra II,” the proportion of low- and moderate-income students enrolling in four-year colleges immediately after high school was much lower in 2004 than in 1992. The percentages of students enrolling in two-year and other institutions were actually up, so the overall college enrollment rate was down only slightly.

The problem with the WSJ blog, the Chronicle.com writers claim, is that it may have created a new “common wisdom” about college participation that will be cited over and over. And it’s just not true that fewer low-income students are going to college, they said.

Of course it’s hard to write a brief blog about a detailed report on a complicated issue. And it’s even harder to write a short, accurate headline. But how about something like “Four-year colleges gain fewer qualified low-income students”? Not completely accurate, but a lot less likely to mislead.

Source Article: The Chronicle of Higher Education