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"First-generation and low-income students thrive at small and midsize private colleges and are more likely to graduate than if they attended a public or large private university, a report by the group representing those institutions says."

"Midway Independent School District's board of trustees Tuesday unanimously approved a letter stating that it does not support a proposed low-income housing development near Woodgate Intermediate School, claiming the complex, coupled with a new D.R. Horton subdivision in the same attendance zone, could strain the district's resources."

"The state treasurer is proposing lowering sales and property tax rates and creating a state income tax to pay for education. The legislature was ordered by the state supreme court to come up with a plan by the end of the current legislative session to fully fund K-12 education as mandated by the state constitution."

"Somerset County is one of the best places in the state for children, according to the latest annual Kids Count report released Monday. For the second year in a row, Somerset County was ranked No. 3 in the report, which measures the state's 21 counties in 13 categories, including poverty, health, safety and education. Nearby Morris and Hunterdon counties finished ahead of Somerset."

"Teenagers drop out of high school for all sorts of reasons: lack of motivation, little support from parents, poor academic performance. But for some low-income students, the decision to leave is purely economic. Many are going to work so they can make money to help their families."

"Kids on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder typically end up with less educational material to work with and subsequently fall behind once they start school. A new study, however, has found a common smartphone app may help parents bring their kids back up to to speed at least when it comes to reading."

"A new study led by researchers at MIT and Harvard University offers another dimension to this so-called 'achievement gap': After imaging the brains of high- and low-income students, they found that the higher-income students had thicker brain cortex in areas associated with visual perception and knowledge accumulation. Furthermore, these differences also correlated with one measure of academic achievementperformance on standardized tests."

"The borrowers struggling the most to pay off their student debt are exactly the people that student loans are designed to help. Regardless of whether they left school in 2005, 2007 or 2009, low-income borrowers were more likely than their wealthier counterparts to default or be at least 120 days delinquent on their payments within five years of graduation, according to data released Thursday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York."

"New research that shows poor children have smaller brains than affluent children has deepened the national debate about ways to narrow the achievement gap. Neuroscientists who studied the brain scans of nearly 1,100 children and young adults nationwide from ages 3 to 20 found that the surface area of the cerebral cortex was linked to family income. They discovered that the brains of children in families that earned less than $25,000 a year had surface areas 6 percent smaller than those whose families earned $150,000 or more. The poor children also scored lower on average on a battery of cognitive tests."

"Many elderly can afford to pay more in taxes. And with a growing number of needy seniors to support, states can't afford to pass up that revenue."

"But the state isn't appropriating enough money for the program to help hundreds of parents in 2016. Preschool Open Doors faces a $6 million funding cut."

"A recent study published by the Hamilton Project, an economic research project, found that while education can propel Americans from the lower class to the middle class, there is little evidence education reduces the gap between the middle class and the wealthiest citizens, reported Education News."