There has been little research on how family income background influences the career earnings boost from a college education. In new research, the authors reach a startling finding: the percentage boost to career earnings from a college education is much lower for individuals who grew up in lower-income families, compared to their peers who grew up in higher-income families. It is not surprising that a low-income background handicaps future career earnings. But one would have hoped that going to college would help close the gap. It does not, at least overall, and for some major groups. In this ongoing research (Bartik and Hershbein 2016), they use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a unique survey that has tracked the same individuals and their descendants since 1968, to estimate career earnings profiles by education and family income background. They match individuals growing up in the 1950s through the 1980s to their parents' incomes at those times to identify who was raised in a low-income family, which they define as having an income below 185 percent of the federal poverty line, a threshold that determines eligibility for the federal school lunch program. They determine the highest level of education earned by age 25, and they compare the earnings of bachelor's graduates and high school graduates from the ages of 25-62.