Essay Topic

The topic of my first major essay will be socioeconomic status. My research question is "How does the socioeconomic status of a family affect the academic success (or education) of students." This topic interests me because I attended several schools before I graduated from high school and became a "cougar" at the University of Houston. I have had the wonderful opportunity of meeting students with diverse backgrounds. "Los Angeles High School" was the first secondary school I attended upon completing intermediate/middle school. The vast majority of these students were from poor working class families. I later transferred to "Schurr High School" which was located in East Los Angeles. This school was comprised of students from families with varied socioeconomic statuses. There were students from working class as well as lower and upper middle class families. I finally transferred to "Dobie High School" where I graduated in 2008. The population of students in this school was rather uniform in social status. Students ranged from working class to lower middle class. In other words, the population of students at Dobie was at neither extreme of the socioeconomic ladder (it was right in between the poorest students at L.A. High and the wealthier students at Schurr High).

My experience in these three schools provided me with an insight that is sometimes overlooked by society. Students from wealthier, more affluent families have a greater likelihood of being academically successful than those from poor families. In order to clearly illustrate this point I plan to cite statistics from reputable sources. I also want to share my personal experiences as a first generation student and the challenges I have faced as the first-born American in my family. I would like other people to see that sometimes natural intelligence is limited by lower social status.

I realize that there will be listeners opposed to my viewpoint. They might provide examples of individuals who rose above poverty through hard work, a view that goes hand in hand with the struggle for the ideal "America Dream." However, I plan to curtail the effectiveness of this counterargument by pointing out that there are statistically much lower success rates for people from lower class backgrounds. In other words, I will disprove my opposition by showing them that they are speaking of individuals that are merely the exception to the rule.


This unfortunate fact conflicts with my personal belief that students should have equal opportunities to become academically successful. I hope that one day the academic disparity between poor and wealthy students will be reconciled. I would like to see this dream become a reality so I might direct my essay at the government or at the very least some politicians that would be willing to fund programs that would ameliorate this problem.