, these students often do not have friends or family who have achieved higher educational levels, which matters because students whose parents did not attend college are much less likely to pursue a college degree themselves. 14 even so, these students can benefit from high school counselors or other mentors who can assist them in choosing schools that provide the financial and counseling support that will help them complete their degrees. and they can benefit from help in picking majors and degrees that lead to higher earnings. 15 second, lower - income students often pursue their education while working to support themselves and family members. educational programs that help students balance these competing responsibilities go a long way to improving completion rates. in recognition of this fact, the u. s. department of education is offering competitive grants to postsecondary institutions to support or establish campus - based childcare programs primarily serving the needs of low - income students. 16 i want to reiterate that addressing the particular barriers standing in the way of lower - income students attending college and earning a degree requires a long - term for example, 65 percent of young adults ( aged 25 to 34 ) with a parent who received a bachelor ’ s degree completed one themselves, compared with 16 percent of young adults whose parents completed no education beyond high school. see board of governors of the federal reserve system ( 2016 ), report on the economic well - being of u. s households in 2015 ( washington : board of governors, may ), https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / 2015 - report - economic - well - being - us - households - 201605. pdf. see brad hershbein and melissa s. kearney ( 2014 ), major decisions : what graduates earn over their lifetimes, hamilton project ( washington : brookings institution ), figure 2, http : / / www. hamiltonproject. org / papers / major _ decisions _ what _ graduates _ earn _ over _ their _ lifetimes ; and anthony p. carnevale, ban cheah, and andrew r hanson ( 2015 ), the economic value of college majors ( washington : georgetown university center on education and the workforce ), https : / / cew. georgetown. edu / wp - content / uploads / the - economic - value - of - college - majors - full - reportweb - final. pdf. for more information, see the department of education ’ s webpage on its child care access means parents in school program at https

by management to publish nominations for board members on the company ’ s proxy statement. however, increasing shareholder access to the proxy statement may not be without costs. some have argued that the democratization of the nomination process may pave the way for special interests to undermine the goal of maximizing shareholder value. ultimately, the question of whether institutional investors mitigate corporate governance problems is an empirical one. academic work in this area has not convincingly linked institutional holdings to firm performance. but some studies have shown that institutional shareholder activism does appear to be motivated by efforts to increase shareholder value, and other studies have confirmed that institutional activism is associated with a greater incidence of corporate governance events, such as shareholder lawsuits and corporate takeovers. based on these findings, it would be premature to conclude that the rising share of corporate equity held by institutional investors is clearly good in terms of sound corporate governance. that said, believing that institutional shareholder activism has benefits and that these benefits may help pave the way for market discipline in a broader sense does seem reasonable. corporate governance at mutual funds perhaps another reason for being cautious about the benefits of institutional ownership is that institutional investors have their own governance problems. as you are no doubt aware, such problems at mutual funds have been manifest in headlines over the past year. i would now like to discuss both the conflicts of interest that lie at the heart of many of the recent mutual fund scandals and the responses by investors and regulators. arguably the most fundamental conflict of interest at mutual funds occurs because the compensation of mutual fund managers and management companies is generally tied to the value of the assets they manage. as a result, managers have an incentive to attract cash, and they may do so by methods which impose costs on long - term shareholders. for example, as was heralded in the press, a few mutual fund firms allowed late traders to exploit stale share prices by rapidly trading mutual fund shares. long - term shareholders suffered reduced investment returns, but management companies collected extra fees on the “ hot money ” while it was in their funds. importantly, long - term investors were not informed of these deals. another method for attracting cash is to compensate mutual fund brokers for bringing in new money. so - called “ directed brokerage ”, for example, is a means of rewarding a broker who sells mutual fund shares by giving the broker a slice of the fund ’ s securities trading business. such compensation arrangements clearly give brokers an incentive to sell these mutual funds regardless of whether the funds are appropriate for