It is well known that socioeconomic background influences the success a child has in school. Having more resources at their disposal gives children from wealthy families advantages in school, where extra tutoring and material support can make a big difference in student performance. But we do not know whether the relationship between wealth and school performance has changed during the recent period of rising economic inequality. Do trends indicate that a child's educational attainment is more strongly determined by family income and education now than it was 30 years ago?

The United States once led industrialized nations in having the highest percentage of college graduates in its population, but now has sunk to twelfth place. Low-income Americans face particularly daunting obstacles to college access; many are unprepared academically and those who are prepared must contend with steep tuition increases and the prospect of heavy student debt loads. This past Fall, Derek Douglas of the Center for American Progress (CAP) led an academic forum to develop policies to improve access to higher education.

Although income inequality has soared since 1970, inequality in educational spending across school districts has fallen considerably, brought about mainly through centralization of educational finance at the level of state governments. But very little is known about the long-term effects of redistributing school expenditures. Sean Corcoran, Thomas Romer, and Howard Rosenthal will investigate whether centralization has weakened electoral support for the public school system and undermined the overall level of educational expenditure.

Providing students with job-related skills has become crucial to their future employment. A growing number of jobs require basic reading, math, and computer skills, and an undergraduate degree is now a prerequisite for many entry-level positions. But very little is known about which skills employers will demand in coming decades or how quickly demand for skills will grow.