shirley tilghman is haunted by the statistic that the best predictor of s.a.t. scores is family income. >> what that really reflects is the fact that resources-- not wealth, necessarily-- but just good middle-class resources can buy quality of experience for children. and they lead to students who >> brown: when jake martin came to the leda workshop, it was the first time he had ever left the hawaiian island he grew up on. he says he hadn't considered attending anything but a state college because he assumed he couldn't afford anything else. >> in my family, college is not a topic that comes up at all. my parents are not saving money. they don't know how to pay for it. they just talk about getting loans. and i'm worried. i don't want to come out of college getting loans. >> brown: that's the good news for low-income students. in reality, they often pay less at elite schools than they would at state schools, since many offer generous financial aid plans. and there's more good news: if they do attend a top-tier college, 82% graduate, compared to just 49% of top st