Equality of Opportunity Project Ranks STC 8th in Nation

A recent ranking by the Equality of Opportunity Project, which aggregated statistics on students’ earnings and their parents’ incomes of every college in America, found that STC ranked 8th in the nation with a mobility rate of 6.9 percent. STC also ranks No. 1 among all community colleges in Texas with this ranking.

This means 6.9 percent of students from South Texas College who come from a poor family end up with high incomes, according to administrators at STC who analyzed the data. The mobility rate was obtained for STC by multiplying the college’s “access” percentage (52.4) and the overall “success rate” percentage (13.2)

“For us, this means that at the time they looked at our students, 52.4 percent were at the bottom fifth income group. This means the college gives access to the students who come from the bottom quintile. Out of those, 13.2 percent were able to move to the very top 20 percent of income,” said Serkan Celtek, Director of Research and Analytical Services at STC. “When you multiply these together, this gives you the mobility rate of 6.9 percent.

“If you look at all of our students right now, for example, and if you rank them in terms of their household income from the highest earning household to the lowest, and you cut that distribution into five equal parts, these students represent the bottom fifth of that,” Celtek said. “The people in the study were in that lowest 20 percent but in the time they were studied were able to move to the very top 20 percent of income.” (https://news.southtexascollege.edu/)