The impact of wealth on a student's educational life chances is sorely understudied. Existing international and national research reveals wealth's impact on a child's educational attainment and achievement. Affluence presents students with enhanced opportunities and outcomes, including participation in elite education.

“Wealth” in Education Research

Wealth, a measure of one's assets, that is, what they own, minus liabilities, or what they owe, is an important determinant of socioeconomic status. Researchers increasingly assert the dearth of wealth data in studies of education. Data on net worth, net financial assets (i.e., wealth minus home equity), and debt are rarely collected in nationally representative studies. Education researchers then depend on measures of income and educational attainment to identify socioeconomic status. This is problematic because class identity by income or ...

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