Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Aug 11;117(32):19108-19115.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1907258117. Epub 2020 Jul 27.

A century of educational inequality in the United States

Michelle Jackson  1 , Brian Holzman  2
Affiliations

A century of educational inequality in the United States

Michelle Jackson et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The "income inequality hypothesis" holds that rising income inequality affects the distribution of a wide range of social and economic outcomes. Although it is often alleged that rising income inequality will increase the advantages of the well-off in the competition for college, some researchers have provided descriptive evidence at odds with the income inequality hypothesis. In this paper, we track long-term trends in family income inequalities in college enrollment and completion ("collegiate inequalities") using all available nationally representative datasets for cohorts born between 1908 and 1995. We show that the trends in collegiate inequalities moved in lockstep with the trend in income inequality over the past century. There is one exception to this general finding: For cohorts at risk for serving in the Vietnam War, collegiate inequalities were high, while income inequality was low. During this period, inequality in college enrollment and completion was significantly higher for men than for women, suggesting a bona fide "Vietnam War" effect. Aside from this singular confounding event, a century of evidence establishes a strong association between income and collegiate inequality, providing support for the view that rising income inequality is fundamentally changing the distribution of life chances.

Keywords: educational inequality; income inequality; long-term trend.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Proportion of birth cohort enrolled in college ages 20 y to 21 y (14), and proportions completing 2- and 4-year college degrees, Current Population Survey March, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (15).
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Probabilities of 4-year college completion at the 90th and 10th percentiles of family income, male birth cohorts, 1908–1986.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
The 90 vs. 10 log-odds ratios expressing inequality in 4-year completion, 4-year enrollment, and any college enrollment. (Left) Male birth cohorts, 1908–1995; (Right) female birth cohorts, 1951–1995.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
The 90 vs.10 log-odds ratios expressing inequality in 4-year college completion, 4-year enrollment, and any college enrollment, men and women born 1935–1943 and 1944–1952, NLS-Older Men data.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.
Predicted increase in collegiate inequality log-odds ratios associated with the top 10%’s share of wages increasing by 0.08 (equivalent to the takeoff in income inequality); 90 vs. 50 (dark gray), 50 vs. 10 (light gray), and 90 vs. 10 (total) comparisons.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 6.
Predicted income inequality effects (coefficients × 0.08) from 1,000 regressions of 90 vs. 10 inequality in “any college” enrollment on income inequality and random number variables, for various model specifications, for full and compressed series, men only. Models: 1, Inequality; 2, Inequality+year; 3, Inequality+controls; 4, Inequality+controls+year; and 5, Inequality+controls+decade.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Krueger A. B., The Rise and Consequences of Inequality in the United States. Speech at the Center for American Progress (Washington, DC, 12 January 2012). https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/events/2012/01/pdf/k.... Accessed 8 July 2020.
    1. Neckerman K. M., Torche F., Inequality: Causes and consequences. Annu. Rev. Sociol. 33, 335–357 (2007).
    1. Davis J., Mazumder B., The decline in intergenerational mobility after 1980. FRB of Chicago Working Paper, WP-2017-5 (2017). https://www.chicagofed.org/publications/working-papers/2017/wp2017-05. Accessed 8 July 2020.
    1. Mitnik P. A., Cumberworth E., Grusky D. B., Social mobility in a high-inequality regime. Ann. Am. Acad. Polit. Soc. Sci. 663, 140–184 (2016).
    1. Chetty R., Hendren N., Kline P., Saez E., Turner N., Is the United States still a land of opportunity? Recent trends in intergenerational mobility. Am. Econ. Rev. 104, 141–147 (2014).

LinkOut - more resources