over workers who have completed only part or all of their primary education can be on the order of 300% to 800%. And as levels of earned income are clearly dependent on years of completed schooling, it follows that large income inequalities will be reinforced if students from the middle- and upper-income brackets are represented in secondary and university disproportionately enrollments. In short, if for financial or other reasons the poor are effective denied access to secondary and higher educational perpetuate a even increase opportunities, the educa tional system can actually inequality across as ell as within generations in developing countries. The private costs of primary education (especially in view of the opportu ty cost of a child's labor to poor families) are higher for poor students than for more affluent students. and the expec benefits of dower-quality) pri mary education are lower for poor students Together the higher costs and lower expected benefits of education mean that a poor family s ra from investment in a child's education is lower than it is for other families. The poor are therefore more likely to drop out during the early years of schooling. As a result of these higher opportunity costs, school attendance, and there- performance, tends to be much lower for children of poor fam fore school backgrounds. This is greatly compounded than for those from higher-income by the lower quality of schools attended by the poor plagued by poor teach- ing and teacher truancy and inadequate facilities. Thus in spite of the often education in many de recent) existence of free and universal primary oping countries, children of the poor, esp ecially in rural areas, are often unable to proceed beyond the first few years of schooling dunng their frrst This financial process of eliminating the relatively few years of schooling is often compounded by the substantial tuition charged private proliferation at e secondary level. Despite t regions, their quality is gen for nonelites in South Asia and other developing qualifications are often lower than those in erally not high, and their teacher the public schools. In many cases, parents do not appear to be getting what they think they are paying for The cost of quality education therefore becomes families. who are often unable to borrow funds to prohibitive to lower-income education. Child labor can be understood as a substi finance their children's tute for a loan as a way to bring money to the family now at later cost-v high cost in the case of child labor. This in effect amounts to a system of educa and selection based not on any criteria of merit but advancement concentration of income tional strictly on family income levels. It tus perpetuates within certain population groups and means that earned income will accrue primarily to people who already possess the bulk of unea whose assets already place them in the upper deciles of the wealth-those personal income distribution scale educational systems developing-country nature of many The inegalitarian even further at the university level, where may pay the full cost of tuition and fees and even provide university students is compounded Because most university students with income grants in the form of stipends. brackets (and were so selected at the education using public funds ady come from the upper-income econdary level), highly subsidized university often amounts to a transfer payment from the poor to the wealthy in the