Jeffrey, W. (2025). Stability or Change? Positional Advantage in Education by Social Origin Amid Educational Expansion in the U.S. CSHE Higher Education Working Paper Series Vol. 25-1

While a growing number of international studies are beginning to examine trends in educational stratification amid expansion, we still know relatively little about the case of the United States. In this analysis, I harmonize across five nationally representative datasets to quantify and compare vertical versus horizontal dimensions of educational stratification by social origin, and to test for change over time. Building upon a positional lens of educational credentials allows for a more holistic view of the multiple paths that privileged students may pursue to both gain and maintain advantage in education amid expansion. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients show that students from higher social origins primarily rely upon attainment level to gain positional advantage—patterns of inequality along vertical lines are much starker than along forms of horizontal stratification at the BA level. Even so, results of pooled ordinal logistic regression models reveal that privileged students are increasingly turning to horizontal bases of rank ordering to sustain their positional advantage as higher education has opened to a larger share of the population. The most significant change in behavior has been the dramatic shift toward more lucrative majors among students from higher social origins for the 1990s birth cohort.