The Impact of the IB Diploma Programme on Student High School and Postsecondary Experiences: US Public Schools Serving Students from Low-Income Households

Low-income students in the United States come disproportionately from the ranks of African American and Latino youth (Gándara & Contreras, 2009; Rothstein, 2004). While they only make up one-third of all children in the U.S., African American and Latino children account for more than three-fourths of youth living in severely poor neighborhoods (O'Hare & Mather, 2003). As a result, the effects of poverty serve to negatively shape the educational experiences of underrepresented minority low income students, causing them to often lack access to excellent schools and equal opportunity. Low-income Latino and African American students are more likely to attend hypersegregated schools that are overcrowded, contain lower teacher quality, lack rigorous college preparatory classes such as honors and AP classes and have overall fewer resources (Oakes & Rogers, 2006; Orfield & Lee, 2005, 2006). The first to potentially attend college in their families, these low-income students are at a higher risk of dropping out of high school and have poorer achievement rates in high school and in college, which will inevitably negatively impact their adult lives (Gándara & Orfield, 2010). According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, only half (50.9%) of recent low-income high school completers (a category that includes both graduates and people who completed an equivalency degree and who are ages 16 to 24) were enrolled in a 2- or 4-year college (2012). Immigrant students from low-income households are particularly affected by low educational attainment (Aud, Fox, & Kewal-Ramani, 2010; Ngo & Lee, 2007; Gándara & Contreras, 2009) and Latino students, who now comprise 22 percent of the school-age population, are the least likely to graduate from high school or college (Gándara & Aldana, 2014; Gándara & Contreras, 2009; Goldrick-Rab, 2006).