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Podcast

The leaky college pipeline for high-achieving, low-income students | Episode 993 of The Education Gadfly Show

Stéphane Lavertu Michael J. Petrilli David Griffith, Ph.D.
11.5.2025
Stéphane Lavertu
 

This week, we’re joined by Ohio State’s Stéphane Lavertu, author of Fordham’s new study, The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students. The report examines the experiences of Ohio’s high-achieving, low-income—or “HALO”—students and finds that access to advanced learning opportunities plays a major role in whether they make it to four-year colleges.

Then, on the Research Minute, David Griffith spotlights a decades-long British study that followed the same individuals from childhood to age fifty—revealing how early cognitive skills shape lifelong outcomes, from education and occupation to wages.

Recommended content:

  • The Leaky Pipeline: Assessing the college outcomes of Ohio’s high-achieving low-income students —Stéphane Lavertu, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

  • Excellence Gaps by Race and Socioeconomic Status —Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

  • Building a Wider, More Diverse Pipeline of Advanced Learners —The National Working Group on Advanced Education

  • Cognitive Skills Beyond Childhood —Uta Bolt, The Economic Journal (2025)

Feedback Welcome: Have ideas for improving our show? Send them to [email protected]

Policy Priority:
High Expectations
Stephane Lavertu

Stéphane Lavertu is a Senior Research Fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a Professor at The Ohio State University’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs. He has conducted numerous studies on education governance, school accountability policies, and public- and private-school choice programs. For the Fordham Institute, he has completed rigorous, Ohio-focused analyses about the impacts of school closure, interdistrict open enrollment, public charter schools, and the EdChoice scholarship. His interdisciplinary academic research on education governance and policy has appeared in political science journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics; economics journals such as Economics of Education Review, Journal of Public Economics, and Journal of Urban Economics; education journals such as Educational Evaluation & Policy Analysis and AERA Open; and public administration journals such as Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory and Journal of Policy Analysis & Management. He has a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, a master’s degree in education from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from The Ohio State University.

The opinions and recommendations presented in this editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policy positions or views of the John Glenn College of Public Affairs or The Ohio State University.

President, Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Michael J. Petrilli is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, executive editor of Education Next, editor in chief of the Education Gadfly Weekly, host of the…

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David Griffith is the National Research Director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, where he manages or authors reports on various subjects including charter schools, …

View Full Bio

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