In recent years, my colleagues and I have been studying the consequences of unequal mentoring opportunities in the U.S. Drawing on large, national data sets, we have found that marginalized students are less likely to report having any kind of mentor and less likely to say that a high school teacher or coach was particularly important to them.

This mentoring gap is enormously consequential-those with mentors are more likely to graduate from high school, attend college, and obtain a Bachelor's degree (Raposa, et al., 2017; Hagler et al., 2017; Christiansen, et al., 2017). Likewise, we are finding that, although having a mentor in college, knowing teachers, and being engaged in faculty around shared interests is associated with later life and career satisfaction (Gallup, 2015), more marginalized students are less likely to find mentors during college (Raposa et al, 2017).

Although such findings are discouraging, they also suggest a promising point of intervention. Perhaps targeting the psychological processes that prevent students from reaching out to available adults is a key lever that could help narrow educational disparities...