Why Cal State L.A. turns the most low-income students into top earners

Josh Kenworthy:

—In many ways, George Pla is the embodiment of the American dream.

The son of Mexican immigrants, Mr. Pla moved to Los Angeles’s Boyle Heights neighborhood at 5 years old. One of five children growing up on the $100 a month his father earned doing construction work in the 1950s, Pla says he always dreamed of attending “the college on the hill.”

That college was California State University, Los Angeles, a mid-tier public university that he credits with his rapid ascent up the income ladder.

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“Without Cal State L.A., I’m nowhere,” says Pla, who initially got his foot in the door at an East Los Angeles community college. After two years he transferred to Cal State, where he graduated in 1972 before going on to get a graduate degree in public finance from the University of Southern California.

Today, Pla is the founder and CEO of a nationally recognized civil engineering firm, Cordoba Corp. He employs more than 200 people and builds major infrastructure projects for California’s transportation, education, water, and energy sectors. With a base salary of more than $1 million a year, Pla’s story and others like it are held up as the pinnacle of the American Dream. His alma mater, Cal State, Los Angeles, launches more low-income kids into the top income bracket than Harvard, according to a new study by a group of high-level academics working under the title The Equality of Opportunity Project.