Changes in the College Mobility Pipeline

 Going to college has consistently conferred a large wage premium. This study shows that the relative premium received by lower-income Americans has halved since 1960. 

The authors decompose this steady rise in ‘collegiate regressivity’ using dozens of survey and administrative datasets documenting 1900–2020 wage premiums and the composition and value-added of collegiate institutions and majors. Three factors explain 80 percent of collegiate regressivity's growth. 

First, the teaching-oriented public universities where lower-income students are concentrated have relatively declined in funding, retention, and economic value since 1960. 

Second, lower-income students have been disproportionately diverted into community and for-profit colleges since 1980 and 1990, respectively. 

Third, higher-income students' falling humanities enrollment and rising computer science enrollment since 2000 have increased their degrees' value. Selection into college-going and across four-year universities are second-order. 

College-going provided equitable returns before 1960, but collegiate regressivity now curtails higher education's potential to reduce inequality and mediates 25 percent of intergenerational income transmission.