Economic and Social Mobility New Directions for Data, Research, and Policy (2025) / Chapter Skim
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4 Postsecondary Education
4 Postsecondary Education
Pages 104-137
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From page 104... ...
. Postsecondary educational attainment -- and, especially, the attainment of a 4-year bachelor's degree -- is also central to the understanding of economic and social mobility in the United States (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [National Academies]
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From page 105... ...
Thus, other postsecondary pathways through which individuals may increase their earnings and career prospects must also be considered. These may include career and technical education, community college degrees and certificates, and job training programs.
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From page 106... ...
In fact, this is a critical building block period of cognitive and socioemotional development that is essential for future academic and labor market success, both through and independent of postsecondary education. It is also one of the most well-studied periods when it comes to understanding how education shapes mobility; also well studied are interventions intended to identify core investments that improve and equalize mobility-relevant outcomes.
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From page 107... ...
Conversely, if the chance to enroll in and graduate from college is strongly determined by family income, then postsecondary education will serve as a vehicle for the intergenerational persistence of inequality. The economic payoff of a college degree is greater in the United States than in any other rich democracy (Autor, 2014)
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From page 108... ...
The data are sorted into sex-education-experience groups of two sexes, five education categories (high school dropout, high school graduate, some college, college graduate, and postcollege degree) , and four potential experience categories (0–9, 10–19, 20–29, and 30–39 years)
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From page 109... ...
Wide earnings gaps by education are directly relevant for intergenerational mobility because there are enormous disparities in degree attainment in the United States by income, race, and other measures of socioeconomic status. It is important to understand that these differences in degree attainment arise not just from postsecondary policies, programs, and institutions but from individual exposure to unequal resources, opportunities, and investments, from birth through adolescence.
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From page 110... ...
. Substantial differences between men and women have emerged since the 1970s birth cohort, when the gender gap in postsecondary attainment favoring men reversed and women started to surpass men.
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From page 111... ...
Interestingly, a recent study from Sweden suggests that growing gender equality in the labor market reduces intergenerational mobility by increasing intergenerational persistence in women's earnings and the household income of both men and women (Engzell & Mood, 2023)
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From page 112... ...
The overall trends presented mask substantial inequality in college enrollment and college completion by family income. Figure 4-3a shows the probabilities of entering college by household income quartile among people born between 1961 and 1964 (dotted line)
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From page 113... ...
First, the probability of attending and graduating from college strongly depends on household income. Second, the income gap has widened across cohorts.
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From page 114... ...
As a result, the income gap in college graduation grew from 4 to 18 percentage points. A body of literature has examined the relationship between family income and educational attainment, and some have examined changes over time (Belley & Lochner, 2007; Duncan et al., 2017; Jackson & Holzman, 2020)
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From page 115... ...
. A recent study shows striking racial differences in the association between parents' and children's educational attainment (i.e., educational mobility)
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From page 116... ...
, if their educational attainment was at least 12th grade and they were in school at the time of the interview, or if their recent grade level was at least "college undergraduate." College is defined as a person having a college degree (i.e., a bachelor's degree)
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From page 117... ...
Qualitative research is illuminating on this point, and an emerging body of work has begun to focus on postsecondary choices, revealing some of the mechanisms that underlie inequality in the selectivity of postsecondary institutions students attend by race and income, and why more non-White first-generation college students from low-income backgrounds seem to underinvest in their postsecondary education by starting at community colleges and for-profit sub-baccalaureate programs (with relatively lower returns) , while their advantaged counterparts start at selective 4-year institutions.
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From page 118... ...
postsecondary education serves as an engine for upward economic mobility by disentangling low-income people from their social origins, or if it functions as an intergenerational replicator 4-15
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From page 119... ...
These include job training programs, career and technical education, community colleges, and thousands of 4-year colleges across the country.
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From page 120... ...
In addition to public colleges, there are thousands of private nonprofit colleges and universities (there is also a considerably smaller sector of for-profit colleges and universities)
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From page 121... ...
The postsecondary educational landscape has changed substantially in the last few decades. Many 2-year institutions have begun to offer 4-year bachelor's programs, leading to a reclassification of some 2-year institutions as 4-year institutions (Lederman, 2011)
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From page 122... ...
VARIATION ACROSS POSTSECONDARY INSTITUTIONS: RESOURCES, GOVERNANCE, AND GRADUATION RATES The amount of economic resources colleges use to educate their student bodies varies substantially across institutions, resulting in considerable heterogeneity in cost and quality. For example, among 4-year institutions, total expenses per full-time-equivalent student in year 2020– 2021 were $69,145 in private nonprofit colleges, $52,897 in public colleges, and only $17,660 in private for-profit institutions (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES]
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From page 123... ...
Graduation rates also have consequences for mobility and vary substantially across institutions. Among students entering 4-year colleges in 2015, graduation rates within 4 years reached 58 percent at private nonprofit colleges, but only 44 percent at public colleges, and a very low 23 percent at private for-profit colleges (NCES, 2022)
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From page 124... ...
As this chapter has documented, there is extensive research estimating how college costs, borrowing, graduation, or labor market returns differ across sectors and socioeconomic status (see Lovenheim & Smith, 2023, for a comprehensive review)
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From page 125... ...
(The effectiveness of job training programs is discussed below, in the section "Alternative Transitions and Pathways to the Labor Market.") POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION: BALANCING RISKS AND RETURNS A college degree, on average, more than pays for itself, even after accounting for tuition costs and wages forgone while in school (Daly & Bengali, 2014)
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From page 126... ...
. Enrollment in this sector is countercyclical, booming during recessions when stressed community colleges and job training programs cannot serve the surge in people seeking to build their job market skills (Looney & Yannelis, 2024)
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From page 127... ...
Community colleges, less-selective 4-year colleges, and for-profit colleges spend far less per student than do selective, elite colleges. Yet the former service the students with the most challenges.
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From page 128... ...
, more information is needed about what kinds of programs and inputs work for which students, not only in terms of graduation rates but also in terms of job placement, career growth, and earnings. ALTERNATIVE TRANSITIONS AND PATHWAYS TO THE LABOR MARKET This chapter, as does most research on postsecondary education, refers largely to educational experiences that happen shortly after high school graduation and that precede a transition to paid employment.
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From page 129... ...
However, not enough is known about how work experiences in high school and college shape career transitions and choices, and thus how these experiences hinder or facilitate economic mobility. There is therefore a critical need to support transition-to-work pathways for large segments of the population throughout the life course (see Bailey, 2015; Holzer & Baum, 2017; Rosenbaum et al., 2006)
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From page 130... ...
waves greater than 1990, this includes persons whose educational attainment is greater than or equal to grade 12 and less than or equal to 3 years of college and who were in school (identified using educ)
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From page 131... ...
, especially in working-class and minority communities, for whom it provides valuable educational, training, and skill-development opportunities that can engender labor market success (Bailey & Sykes, 2018; Greenberg et al., 2022; Kleykamp, 2013; National Academies, 2019b)
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From page 132... ...
. Military service provides adults with access to educational benefits, such as tuition assistance, scholarships, and training programs, that can provide avenues for career advancement and social mobility upon leaving the military (Barr, 2019; National Academies, 2019b; Skocpol, 1995)
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From page 133... ...
is a critical building block period of cognitive and socioemotional development that is essential for future academic and labor market success, both through and independent of postsecondary education. Indeed, it is one of the most well-studied periods when it comes to understanding how education shapes mobility, as are interventions intended to identify core investments that improve and equalize mobility-relevant outcomes.
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From page 134... ...
postsecondary education serves as an engine for upward economic mobility by disentangling students from lowincome backgrounds from their social origins, or if it functions as an intergenerational replicator of inequality by providing privileged access to wealthy families (including, among other things, through legacy admissions at elite colleges and tax benefits to reduce the costs of higher education)
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From page 135... ...
of postsecondary education. There is extensive research estimating how college costs, borrowing, default, graduation, or labor market returns differ across sectors and socioeconomic status.
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From page 136... ...
Given the heterogeneity in returns to college, the committee calls for a comparative body of work that will address questions about the quality of higher education, including the ways in which curricula, pedagogical techniques, and class size improve learning and graduation rates as well as job placement, career growth, and earnings. Recommendation 4-4: Researchers should study ways to stimulate demand for postsecondary education for particular populations and settings.
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From page 137... ...
It is important to understand how this has affected individual welfare, incentives to invest in education, and economic mobility. A better data infrastructure is also needed to track participants nationally and to incorporate job training data into other longitudinal record data efforts.
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