The leaky college pipeline for high-achieving, low-income students | Episode 993 of The Education Gadfly Show

This week, we’re joined by Ohio State’s Stéphane Lavertu, author of Fordham’s new study, The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students. The report examines the experiences of Ohio’s high-achieving, low-income—or “HALO”—students and finds that access to advanced learning opportunities plays a major role in whether they make it to four-year colleges.

Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith spotlights a decades-long British study that followed the same individuals from childhood to age fifty—revealing how early cognitive skills shape lifelong outcomes, from education and occupation to wages.

Recommended content: 

• The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students —Stéphane Lavertu, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Excellence Gaps by Race and Socioeconomic Status —Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner, Thomas B. Fordham Institute
• Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners —The National Working Group on Advanced Education
• Cognitive Skills Beyond Childhood —Uta Bolt, The Economic Journal (2025) 

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