Socioeconomic Achievements of Former College Students

Abstract

Colleges and universities are inextricably linked to social mobility in American society because they are entrusted with responsibility for both the education and the certification of youth [17]. There is abundant evidence supporting the centrality of schooling in the determination of intergenerational social mobility in American society [8, 18, 22]. Most of this evidence is derived from studies based on the seminal model of occupational attainment developed by Blau and Duncan [7] and the Wisconsin social-psychological model of attainment [26, 27]. These models postulate a dual role of schooling in the social mobility process. First, schooling plays an indirect role by serving a mediator or conduit by which the resources of the individual in the form of ability and family background are converted into earnings and occupational status [8, p. 186]. In this respect, schooling serves as an instrument of social-origin advantages [9]. Second, schooling plays a direct role in intergenerational social mobility that counters the stratifying effect of the former role. This is evident from findings indicating that differential levels of educational attainment yield differential levels of socioeconomic achievement among individuals with equivalent social backgrounds [12, 15, 16]. Thus, some portion of social-origin handicaps at birth may be overcome by schooling, and conversely, those persons benefitted at birth may lose their initial advantage through low levels of educational attainment.