[randomdata]

> Surely community colleges can't be found guilty of being prestige factories that filter out poor performing students.

No? Back in my day community colleges still had relatively stringent entrance requirements and would not see you graduate if you did not meet a certain level of academic excellence during the course of being there, not to mention the imposition of a financial barrier to have the economically disadvantaged think twice. The expectations weren't as high as college. They certainly were not gunning for the same calibre of people as Harvard. But they weren't fawning over people with Down syndrome either.

Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack. Those who did reasonably well at things, but were not the stars, with admissions expectations to match. What you tell us about income mirrors the social expectations. Those who can make it through college are higher on the "born to do well" spectrum than those who could only make it through high school.

Let's face it, a lot of people out there could never make it through college, or even community college, even if they wanted nothing more in life. It can be hard, and when things are hard, some will fail. They just weren't born with the "right stuff". And it turns out that "right stuff" can also impact one's career in significant ways. The aforementioned people with Down syndrome aren't CEOs at a Fortune 500s just because they didn't go to college.

[ModernMech]

> Maybe things have changed drastically in the intervening years, but in my day community college was seen as the place to go for those around the middle of the pack.

I think things have indeed changed. The role you describe is filled by state schools now. These days the biggest admissions barrier to community college is the residency requirement. Fulfill that and you’re pretty much guaranteed a spot. (Source: attended community college for some time)

[cpwright]

At the local community college where I grew up ago they had open enrollment 25 years ago. Anyone in the county could attend. That doesn't mean they didn't have standards for you to pass the courses necessary to graduate.

[randomdata]

Suggesting that incomes should start to normalize as the kids with down syndrome start graduating form community college more and more? That's quite reasonable, if what you say is true.

Last time I saw the numbers only ~40% of Americans had reached some kind of post-secondary achievement, so even semi-recently it has still be fairly abnormal to graduate from college, including community college.

Incomes are stagnant, so as more and a wider set of the population attain such scholastic achievement in community college the averages on this level will mathematically have to show a decline, which will narrow the gap spoken of before relative to today's high school.