Is it better to be born rich or born smart? There’s a definitive answer to that question — one, I am guessing, many people in the United States would rather not hear.
According to a study released last month by Georgetown's Center on Education and the Workforce, low-income kindergartners who received high scores on tests of academic talent fared significantly worse when it came to graduating from college and obtaining a desirable entry-level position than 5- and 6-year-old children who performed poorly but came from families in the top income quartile.
How much worse? The richer group of children, it seems, had to try very hard to fail — they had a 7 in 10 chance of meeting the milestones.