Source: New York Times

The latest data from the Census Bureau show that nearly five million people over the age of 25 in the New York metropolitan area had at least a bachelor’s degree in 2005, marking an increase of 700,000 college graduates in the area over the past five years.

While Pedro Noguera says this development could ease burdens on city services and lead to a lower crime rate, he notes the impact on the region’s poor could be negative.

“It’s more likely to mean that it’s increasingly difficult for poor people without college degrees,” he told the New York Times in an Aug. 16 story. “Affordable housing is not as available. The people who make the city work, who do the hard work in the city — the waiters and janitors — are not going to be able to live in the city.”