大学与对美国梦的追求：高等教育依旧是阶层流动的重要驱动力.docxVIP

Higher education continues to be an important driver of upward mobility: Over half of low- income students who enrolled at public and nonprofit universities in the early 2000s moved up to one of the highest two income quintiles by the time they reached their late 20s or early 30s. But not all postsecondary institutions deliver an education that puts students on an upward path. Consequently, it is a matter of great importance for students, families, and policymakers to understand the variation among colleges in the rates H at which their students climb the income ladder. This report examines the landscape of economic mobility for students who attended a group of 1,107 four-year colleges and universities in the early 2000s. We find that many factors are correlated with economic mobility, including college selectiv- ity, per-student spending, available programs and majors, student demographic characteristics, and especially geographic location and college gradua- tion rates. It is increasingly evident that there is no single recipe to generating strong mobility outcomes; indeed, some less-competitive institutions outper- form highly competitive universities in the rate at which they move students from the bottom-two income quintiles to the top-two income quintiles. Meanwhile, a successful college’s mobility rate can- not simply be reduced to the student populations it enrolls. Often, colleges with similar student pop- ulations and characteristics produce substantially different mobility outcomes. We conclude by examining a group of institutions that “beat the odds” in generating high mobility rates; that is, after controlling for a wide range of demo- graphic and institutional characteristics, these insti- tutions consistently move students up the income ladder at levels that are far above what would be expected of them. These colleges are rarely state flag- sh