Dive Brief:

• A British study finds that students with parents from a professional background are three times as likely to enter a high-status university as students with working-class parents.
• The researcher in charge said the gap held even after accounting for differences in academic performance as measured by grades or standardized tests.
• That suggests that students from working-class backgrounds who have the scores necessary to enter elite universities are either not applying or not being admitted.

Dive Insight:

The study comes just as Michelle Obama launches an effort to encourage more low-income students to apply to college. And the data suggest that a high-profile push might be what some students need, though some of the change may have to come on the colleges' end, too.