CMC—Best School for Poor Kids to Become the Top 1%

Since our reading on Murray touches on "Elite" colleges, I read this fantastic Vox article earlier this year that mentions CMC. According to the article, CMC is the BEST school for making poor kids rich. More specifically, almost 1/3 of students from the bottom 20% income bracket make it to the Top 1%. As amazing as this sounds, only 4.8% of CMC's student body actually falls within that category.

CMC's economic representation aligns with Murray's "Dominance of the Upper Middle Class" in the elite colleges section, where he presents data on how upper-middle class children now dominate private schools. Almost 50% of CMC's student population come from the top 5% of the income percentile, a percentage that Murray defines as the "new upper class" made up of adults in managerial positions or professionals (p. 20).

As students of this fine institution, I feel like this would be a great class discussion about economic representation on campus, and we can hypothesize what factors contribute to this high rate of social mobility amongst low-income students at CMC.