
You Draw It: Family Income vs. College Attendence - rgbrgb
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/05/28/upshot/you-draw-it-how-family-income-affects-childrens-college-chances.html?WT.mc_id=2015-JUNE-FB-PROPENSITY_EDUCATION-AUD_DEV-0616-0630
======
erikb
Drawing an assumption before evaluating data is a really good approach. Ten
points to Griffindor for that one.

They said their guess and the data differ the same way as my guess. But then
they think the data is correct and they just throw out their guess. That's
actually wrong. This point is very important in statistics, but you actually
already learn it in 4th or 5th grade math classes. Make a guess about the end
result and if your calculated results is quite different be sceptical about
your calculated result. Our ability to guess is not good at getting the exact
numbers right, but it's really, really good at getting the big picture.
Therefore when data and guess disagree there's a really good chance the data
is wrong and we must question it and not just our guess (which we can also
question, but questioning the data is more important).

PS: It's quite funny how often we consume lots of data and calculate a lot and
still the right answer to the question is: "Dunno yet"

At least for me that's what I learned in the last few years on HN.

~~~
cactusface
Well, one thing they glossed over is the cost of tuition at the colleges in
question varies. The poorest families are more likely to send their children
to cheaper colleges. You might get an S curve if it was for colleges with $50K
tuition, or whatever.

~~~
ma2rten
That was actually mentioned in the text though.

~~~
cactusface
Ooops...

------
kristopolous
The level of variations in the text of the article depending on the drawing is
a nice touch: [http://imgur.com/a/pbmfc](http://imgur.com/a/pbmfc) (didn't get
anything special for drawing a bell curve BTW)

~~~
inerte
Nice. It is also possible to get a "trust-fund dip" if you move the line
downward near the end. You get a text with something like "you thought really
rich people don't feel compelled to go to college".

~~~
jimmaswell
I did that and didn't get that message. Wasn't a very extreme dip though

------
Sealy
I really like the way the article gets its readers to interact by drawing the
line and giving tailored feedback. It makes the article way more memorable and
engaging.

This is _EDUCATION_ done right.... Quite fitting really as the article is
about Uni and education in itself!

This post definitely gets my up-vote.

~~~
rileyriley
I think it's an amazing achievement and definitely worth studying. The nytimes
have been doing a great job with visualizations and engagements like this -
not in a spurious "hey click the flashing light" way but in a "think
carefully, and now here's this article in terms of what you think" way.

Incredible! If only text books worked like this.

Desmos is trying to do this for math lessons:
[https://teacher.desmos.com/](https://teacher.desmos.com/)

------
blfr
Previously
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618827](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9618827)
(95 comments)

------
bildung
I really like the idea of having the readers draw their assumption out. A
great approach to creating conscious engagement with a complex topic.

The scales in this particular example are problematic, though. By using a
logarithmic scale for the x dimension, the non-linear relationship between
income and college attendance is hidden to the majority of readers.
Logarithmic scales are hard to grasp for most people not working with numbers
all day. Having percentages on both axes but only one of them being linear
further obfuscates the variable relationship.

~~~
Veedrac
Am I missing something or are they not both linear?

~~~
jacalata
It's income rank, rather than actual income. In my explanatory text they
mention that the difference between two points on the far left is a few
hundred dollars and the difference between two points on the right is a
million or so (I forget the actual numbers).

------
sireat
I got the starting and end points reasonably close, but I too drew an S line
since I did not think that reality could be so linear.

Something so linear just makes me question whether there is some trickery
going on. You learn early on that data is never so easily fitted.

------
galfarragem
Interesting article but mostly because of the form not the conclusion - as
refered in other comments, most people will guess the big picture. What's
really impressive IMHO is that people in NY times are consistently killing it
in mainstream interactive journalism.

------
nicklovescode
Would be a good weekend project to make a generalized form of this(enter your
own data, it constructs a page). Maybe I'll try it if I go to a hackathon
sometime later this year, but someone should beat me to it!

------
carlob
I would really like to see this with actual income on the x axis rather than
just the percentile. And then again with the log of income.

~~~
cocoflunchy
See [http://unside.t4you.in/data/intuitive-
axes/](http://unside.t4you.in/data/intuitive-axes/)

------
Hyvel
The link to the study comparing income and graduation was broken.

Here it is :
[http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633](http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633)

The female advantage graphs are truly interesting.

~~~
todd8
This sentence from the paper sums up to me a remarkable trend:

> For the most recent cohorts, the four-year college graduation rate for women
> (32 percent) is ten points higher than the comparable rate for males (22
> percent).

This means that women were completing college (I believe in the year 2006) at
1.5 times the rate that men did. That's a huge difference, and from the charts
it appears that the difference has been increasing for decades without signs
of leveling off.

------
relicscattergun
Hasn't this been posted on HN before...like, about a week or so ago?

------
GnarfGnarf
In college they would say "Attendance".

------
mattmaroon
Am I the only one who constantly has nytimes website flip to another page due
to scrolling? It's every time I read an article.

------
jimmaswell
Why do the richest bother going to college if they can just live very well off
interest and investments?

~~~
matthiasl
It's a good place to meet people.

It's interesting.

It's fun.

~~~
jimmaswell
I imagine you could get all that without having an obligation of coursework
hanging over you, but I guess at that point that doesn't matter much either

------
logicallee
Very interesting. I was extremely accurate, but the 50th percentile point
helped tremendously.

I started drawing from the left, with the approach given below, however by the
time I was at the 50th percecntile mark I was nowhere near 50% so I moved
those up a bit. Around 40th to 60th percentile is when I would have done the
worst without the aid of the middle point. (Which brought my graph up.)

My graph: [http://imgur.com/a/hjvdf](http://imgur.com/a/hjvdf)

 _\- You drew a more accurate picture of reality than about 98 percent of
people who have tried so far.

\- Your line was relatively straight, reflecting one of the more striking
findings of this research: The relationship between college enrollment and
parental-income rank is linear.

\- Your guess was extremely accurate. Is that you, Raj Chetty?_

This was my methodology for drawing "extremely accurately":

Starting at left (where I started drawing) I reasoned, primary and secondary
education is free and mandatory in the united states, and there are huge
scholarship and other support programs. So while the poorest of the poor have
everything going against them in terms of family support and even culturally,
plus likely the pressure of starting to work early, still, I reasoned at least
one out of five can make use of the opportunities and begin attending college.

I then intended to proceed up steadily, but I intended to level off somewhat
between the 40th and 70th percentile, because a lot of average-income people
simply start working. As you can see, the free point moved my graph up (via
adjustment by me when I saw that I was still short of it at that point)
heavily.

I had then intended to proceed up linearly to a very high rate of college
attendance, and after a certain income level (say, top 5%-3%) I intended to be
around 100%. I thought basically 100% of the top of the top attended college,
but for me being in the top 5% of income would have assured that. It's not
like measuring "graduate degree" or something else. A college degree is quite
standard for children of the top incomes. I also thought it would stop
levelling up because some people from extremely rich families produce lazy
children by spoiling them. If your child doesn't go to college when you're
making $150,000, they're not going to go to college when you're making
$200,000. If they're not going to go when you're pulling $1M per year, they
certainly aren't when you're pulling $5M per year. (in fact might be slightly
less likely to.)

As you can see from the rest of the album -
[http://imgur.com/a/hjvdf](http://imgur.com/a/hjvdf) \- I did quite well. But
these effects aren't present at all.

Some of the poor attended exactly as I predicted, and this rose immediately
with income. The effect I predicted that did NOT appear is that in the middle
class, there is a firm distinction between being at the 40th or 60th
percentile - it is still linear. I would have thought it didn't matter. If you
look here - [http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2014/10/02/incomes-
are-m...](http://blogs.marketwatch.com/encore/2014/10/02/incomes-are-much-
lower-than-you-think/) \- sadly they only show a few select percentiles, but
let's go around the $51,939 level at 50%. That is let's say $3,100 per month
take-home pay, give or take. I wouldn't have expected there to be a huge
decision on whether YOU will attend college, depending on whether YOUR FAMILY
is earning $2,800 per month or $3,500 per month. Essentially, I think this
wouldn't figure into your decision at all, period. Also, I think that being at
the 40th to 60th percentile does NOT mark a shift in cultural status (what
part of the middle class you're in), and also is incredibly fluid. A family's
income could easily shift by this amount from one year to the next - what,
would their child not attend college in 2003 but would attend in 2005, because
they're taking home $3,500 per month instead of $2,800? Maybe to some small
extend, but certainly not linearly.

So I expected a smooth or levelled-off part in the middle percentiles. This
didn't happen, but the supplied point helped me avoid it - I actively adjusted
my graph due to it.

I wonder what the reasoning was behind giving people a supplied point. I guess
they wanted to know the shape people guessed, rather than the levels people
guessed? Or set people's expectations, so that they don't have wild
expectations about the percentage of the population that attends college?

~~~
alkonaut
> I wonder what the reasoning was behind giving people a supplied point. I
> guess they wanted to know the shape people guessed, rather than the levels
> people guessed? Or set people's expectations, so that they don't have wild
> expectations about the percentage of the population that attends college?

Exactly. They essentially fix the "m" in the y = k*x + m equation, and let
people guess only k. That is, you factor out a lot of the guesswork about how
many actually attend higher education and let the question focus on how it
varies with income. When you ask people for a guess it's much easier to
average a scalar value than a tuple. Clever, if you ask me.

~~~
logicallee
Yes, but anyone who has information about their immediate percentile-neighbors
(but nobody else) now 2 data points (their own income-part of society and the
supplied data point) and so unless they're around the 50th percentile
themselves you have supplied them with a ton of information. I think it would
have been far more instructive not to include that data point: people's
guesses also would have been more revealing (the last, aggregate-guesses graph
on the results page). (Especially since we can have a good idea about who the
guessers are - readers of the NY Times who choose to complete this specific
graph exercise.)

------
blumkvist

        You drew a more accurate picture of reality than about 92 percent of people who have tried so far.
        You correctly guessed that children from the very poorest families face tough odds in going to college – only about one in four do.
        You underestimated the chances of college enrollment for the very richest children. In reality, about 94 percent of children from America’s richest families go to college. (You guessed around 77 percent.)

------
tezza
One part Gimmick, two parts Chart Junk with a large dash of Navel Gazing and a
squeeze of Self Re-inforcement.

This is almost the Comfortable Middle Class version of the Find-your-way-
through-a-Maze puzzles that you find on paper placemats in roadside Burger
Restaurants.

