WFU has more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60

A recent study published in The New York Times found that 38 colleges in the US have more students from the top 1 percent than the bottom 60 percent, with Wake Forest University ranking #20 on that list.

It turns out 21.7 percent of Wake Forest students are in the top 1%, with only 17 percent of students in the bottom 60 percent.

The NYT defines the 1 percent as “families who made about $630,000 or more per year” and the bottom 60 percent as families making “less than $65K.”

Table from NYT

In fact, Wake Forest has the largest percentage of students from the top one percent (22%) than all of the schools in the ACC – even more than Duke. On the other hand, only 2.3 % of students come from the bottom fifth.

The worst part is, according to the study, less than 1% of poor students who do make it to Wake become rich as adults. This is among the lowest percentile in the ACC, colleges in North Carolina and elite colleges in general. The study also found it’s extremely unlikely that a student at Wake Forest moved up two or more income quintiles.

Table from NYT

At least there is some good news. Out of the 2,137 colleges studied, Wake Forest comes in at #53 for percent of students becoming rich by age 34.

It looks like if you come to Wake rich, you’ll leave rich, and if you come poor, you’ll leave poor. What is that 66K a year even for?