Socioeconomic Class

Race, Income, and College in 25 Years: Evaluating Justice O'Connor's Conjecture

Alan Krueger
Jesse M. Rothstein
Sarah Turner
2006

In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), Justice Sandra Day O'Connor conjectured that in 25 years affirmative action in college admissions will be unnecessary. We project the test score distribution of black and white college applicants 25 years from now, focusing on the role of black-white family income gaps. Economic progress alone is unlikely to narrow the achievement gap enough in 25 years to produce today's racial diversity levels with race-blind admissions. A return to the rapid black-white test score convergence of the 1980s could plausibly cause black...

Inequality, Student Achievement, And College Admissions: A Remedy For Underrepresentation

Roger E. Studley
2003

Large socioeconomic and ethnic disparities exist in college admissions. This paper demonstrates that by systematically accounting for the effect of socioeconomic circumstance on pre-college achievement, colleges can substantially reduce these disparities. A conceptual model distinguishes students' realized achievement from their underlying ability (inclusive of effort and motivation) and relates achievement differences to both ability and socioeconomic circumstance. The model shows that an admissions policy that systematically accounts for the relationship between circumstance and...

International Berkeley: Enrolling International Students Yesterday and Today, Debates on the Benefits of Multicultural Diversity, and Macro Questions on Access and Equity by John Aubrey Douglass

John Aubrey Douglass
2014

The argument that cultural and other forms of diversity enhance the educational experience of all students is generally associated largely with post-1960 efforts to expand the presence of disadvantaged groups on the campuses of America’s universities and colleges. Yet, in the case of UC Berkeley, debates on the merits of cultural diversity have much earlier roots in the historical enrollment of international students. Debates in the late 1800s and early twentieth century revolved around the appropriateness of enrolling foreign students, particularly those from Asia. The result was an...

A Social Contract Between the Public Higher Education Sector and the People of South Africa, by Ahmed C. Bawa

Ahmed C. Bawa
2000

The higher education sector in South Africa is experiencing an existential crisis. For all of its diverse elements and activities and values as a system, its historic mission and the role that it plays in society were defined for it in the previous era - this not withstanding the progressive roles played by some of the . However, it is an existential crisis which stems only partially from its history in our Apartheid past. Its intellectual and organisational shape stems also from its place on the edge of the global academic metropole from which it attempts to draw its academic...

Winners and Losers? The Effect of Gaining and Losing Access to Selective Colleges on Education and Labor Market Outcomes, by Sandra Black, Jeffrey Denning, and Jesse Rothstein CSHE 2.20 (May 2020)

Sandra E. Black
Jeffrey T. Denning
Jesse Rothstein
2020

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative admissions policies. We use the introduction of the Top Ten Percent rule and administrative data from the State of Texas to estimate the effect of access to a selective college on student graduation and earnings outcomes. We estimate separate effects on...

ASYMMETRY BY DESIGN? Identity Obfuscation, Reputational Pressure, and Consumer Predation in U.S. For-Profit Higher Education, by Adam Goldstein and Charlie Eaton CSHE 5.20 (May 2020)

Adam Goldstein
Charlie Eaton
2020

This article develops and tests an identity-based account of malfeasance in consumer markets. It is hypothesized that multi-brand organizational structures help predatory firms short-circuit reputational discipline by rendering their underlying identities opaque to consumer audiences. The analysis utilizes comprehensive administrative data on all for-profit U.S. colleges, an industry characterized by widespread fraud and poor (though variable) educational outcomes. Consistent with the hypothesis that brand differentiation facilitates malfeasance by reducing ex ante reputational risks,...

The Poor and the Rich: A Look at Economic Stratification and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in the United States

John Aubrey Douglass
Gregg Thomson
2008

A number of national studies point to a trend in which highly selective and elite private and public universities are becoming less accessible to lower-income students. At the same time there have been surprisingly few studies of the actual characteristics and academic experiences of low-income students or comparisons of their undergraduate experience with those of more wealthy students. This paper explores the divide between poor and rich students, first comparing a group of selective US institutions and their number and percentage of Pell Grant recipients and then, using...

A New Generation: Ethnicity, Socioeconomic Status, Immigration and the Undergraduate Experience at the University of California

Steven G. Brint
John Aubrey Douglass
Richard Flacks
Gregg Thomson
Steve Chatman
2007

Some fifty years ago, researchers based at Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education launched a series of innovative studies on the character and disposition of undergraduate students in America’s colleges and universities. It was part of a wave of interest in the student experience and views, bolstered by the surge in university enrollment and a national commitment to mass higher education. Paul Heist, T.R. McConnell, Martin Trow, and Burton Clark, all affiliates of the Center, pioneered studies on student culture, and incorporated surveys as one method of analysis.

Affirmative Action, Mismatch, and Economic Mobility After California’s Proposition 209, by Zachary Bleemer, CSHE 10.20 (August 2020)

Zachary Bleemer
2020

Proposition 209 banned race-based affirmative action at California public universities in 1998. This study analyzes Prop 209's impact on student outcomes using a difference-in-difference research design and a newly-constructed longitudinal database linking all 1994-2002 University of California applicants to their college enrollment, course performance, major choice, degree attainment, and wages into their mid-30s. Ending affirmative action caused UC's 10,000 annual underrepresented minority (URM) freshman applicants to cascade into lower-quality public and private universities. URM...

Top Percent Policies and the Return to Postsecondary Selectivity, by Zachary Bleemer, CSHE 1.21 (January 2021)

Zachary Bleemer
2021

I study the efficacy of test-based meritocracy in college admissions by evaluating the impact of a grade-based “top percent'' policy implemented by the University of California. Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) provided large admission advantages to the top four percent of 2001-2011 graduates from each California high school. I construct a novel longitudinal dataset linking the ELC era’s 1.8 million UC applicants to educational and labor market outcomes. I first employ a regression discontinuity design to show that ELC led over 10 percent of barely-eligible applicants from low-...