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Three ways education can pave the way out of poverty include improving attitudes, improving skills, and improving control over situations. The first thing that must be understood is poverty's adverse impact upon people who are victims. Poverty's environment exacts severe consequences upon the poor such as poor physical, cognitive and emotional health (Smith and Ashiabi, 2007). According to the available literature on poverty, the poor are overly burdened with ill health, injury, premature death, lack of healthcare, poor housing, poor education, risk of personal safety, food security and other elements necessary for physical development (Smith and Ashiabi, 2007). Smith and Ashiabi (2007) report there exists a strong correlation between socio-economic status and cognitive/academic outcomes. The conclusion that have resulted from the studies supports that education can pave the way out of poverty.

Vinovskis (1992) promoted the idea through his writings that the children of the poor could escape their poverty through education. Education in the 17th century was initially led by men but gradually gave way to the women in the 18th century and then to the public education system of the 19th and 20th century in an attempt to teach values, respect for the law, and basic literacy (Vinovskis, 1992). Education has been proven to promote social mobility (Vinovskis, 1992) but is unlikely by itself to overcome all the disadvantages of poverty for the individual.

Education can pave the way out of poverty through improving attitudes, improving skills, and improving control over situations which will allow the individual to increase his or her social mobility as he or she also increase the ability to control his or her destiny. Schieman and Plickert (2008) agree that education is a key to improving social mobility though providing individuals with the credentials to exercise more control over his or her circumstances. Research indicate that the well educated have higher status occupations which include higher levels of schedule control, challenging, interesting and enriching work, greater economic rewards and security, and a higher level of trust (Schieman and Plickert, 2008). Obtaining a better education allows the individual to improve attitudes, improve skills, and improve control over situations.

Education improves the attitude of an individual by giving the individual a greater sense of personal control (Schieman and Plickert, 2008).

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