Opportunity Gap
The opportunity gap is the way social or economic factors result in lower rates of success in a variety of life aspirations.
What is the Opportunity Gap
The opportunity gap is one of the widest-reaching issues in our society today. It is the way uncontrollable factors can contribute to lower rates of success in educational achievement, career prospects, and other life aspirations.
Though it’s often called the “achievement gap”, at Close the Gap, we intentionally use the term “opportunity gap” instead. This is because we feel the word “achievement” implies that the reason this disparity exists is that some individuals simply don’t work as hard as others to achieve their goals. We’d like to bring awareness to the ways in which that assumption is a myth.
The reality is that we are not all born with the same opportunities and sadly, many don’t get the chance to even believe they can achieve something, let alone the resources necessary to reach for it. This has nothing to do with a person’s potential or abilities and everything to do with the opportunities available to them.
Definition of Opportunity Gap
Opportunity Gap Examples
K-12
The K-12 setting is where the opportunity gap is most often defined in an individual’s life and for children from lower-income families, research suggests this starts even before entering kindergarten. By the time a child starts school, they can already be 2-3 years behind their more affluent peers in terms of learning and school readiness. If not addressed, this gap can widen over time and affect future opportunities to further education or approach certain career paths.
College
College is where the effects of an opportunity gap can become most obvious in a community – if only because of the people who might not be there. A college degree often serves as an equalizer, regardless of an individual’s background. Once granted access to higher education, doors open but for many, the opportunity to attend college feels unattainable. Lower rates of high school graduation, family obligations, and the enormous financial burden of college tuition are just some of the crippling factors for countless students in the U.S.
Workplace
The opportunity gap negatively affects many individuals long before they get the chance to enter their desired career. This creates a wider gap between what can be achieved, even for those living and working in the same place. This leads to companies, policies, and entire industries missing out on the diverse contributions that create an equitable workplace and community. In the end, this can create a two-tier workforce where employees are valued based on circumstances entirely outside of their control.
Why Closing the Opportunity Gap is Important
Build a brighter future
When children are offered better academic opportunities, they grow up with the chance to achieve their career aspirations and the choices to create their most fulfilling lifestyle. This creates an enhanced quality of life, higher earning potential, and improvements within their communities.
Foster confident communities
Closing the opportunity gap would help reduce certain stigmas and beliefs that have negatively affected some communities. This gap doesn’t exist because an individual isn’t good or valuable enough and addressing this head-on would help communities and individuals to believe in their own potential.
Close additional gaps
The opportunity gap runs parallel to several other social inequalities and can even be the source of them, like in the case of the network gap. If addressed effectively, closing the opportunity gap would inevitably help bridge the others.
Opportunity Gap Statistics
22% of students in poverty don’t graduate high school
Recent findings reveal that while 6% of children who’ve never lived in poverty will drop out of high school, that number climbs to 22% for children who’ve lived in poverty, even temporarily during the time of the survey.
15.6% less spent on students in high-poverty districts
According to the U.S. Department of Education, high-poverty districts spend 15.6% less on each student than those in more affluent districts. This can result in less student retention, lower earning potential after graduation, and high poverty rates in adulthood.
3 in 4 college students fear they won’t graduate
In a 2020 survey of undergraduates, 77% of students said they fear they won’t be able to stay on track to graduate due to hardships caused by COVID-19.
Opportunity Gap Resources
Vox: Living in a poor neighborhood changes everything about your life
In this animated article, reporter Alvin Chang shines a light on some of the histories behind the way some of the historically poorest neighborhoods in the U.S. can define their lives and how race is often at the center of this issue.
Read more >
NYT: Without Fixing Inequality, the Schools Are Always Going to Struggle
In this piece for the New York Times, Lora Kelley connected with eight public school teachers from across the U.S. to get their perspectives on how the place a student is born and raised affects their educational opportunities and life ahead.
Read more >
Stanford University: The Educational Opportunity Project
The Educational Opportunity Project is an interactive tool created to map and share research from Stanford University on the opportunity gap we see in education. It explores numerous topics from how segregation still affects education in the U.S. to how neighborhoods correlate to certain test scores. Discover more >
How to Close the Opportunity Gap
Volunteer your time
One of the most fulfilling ways to close the opportunity gap is the way you use your time. One of the best ways to volunteer is to look for mentorship opportunities that can help students in your community or peers at work.
Donate to a cause
There are several organizations working to address the opportunity gap and most of them work directly with local schools or businesses. Help support a cause you care about by making a financial contribution.
Learn and share resources
The simplest way to help close the opportunity gap is to learn more about it and share that with others in your community. Get started with the resources below.