For the past 20 years, social scientists have devoted increasing attention to the links between type of postsecondary education received and socioeconomic inequalities. Borrowing the terminology of Charles & Bradley (2002), we refer to the forms of these connections as horizontal dimensions of education-based stratification. We review studies of how institutional characteristics (college quality and type) and college experiences (field of specialization, academic performance, and pathway) are related to labor market outcomes. We also discuss research that treats college quality and field of specialization as dependent variables influenced by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Throughout, we assess alternative theoretical explanations for why and how these horizontal aspects of college education play a stratifying role. We also note methodological developments that raise questions about some of the effects. Mirroring the literature, we emphasize how horizontal dimensions of stratification a...

Horizontal Stratification in Postsecondary Education: Forms, Explanations, and Implications

This article uses four data sets to assess changes in the relative weights of test- and performance-based merit criteria on college enrollment during the 1980s and 1990s and considers their significance for affirmative action. Our results support the “shifting meritocracy” hypothesis, revealed by selective postsecondary institutions’ increased reliance on test scores to screen students. This shift has made it difficult for institutions to achieve diversity without giving minorities a “boost” through race-sensitive preferences. Statistical simulations that equalize, hold constant, or exclude test scores or class rank from the admission decision illustrate that reliance on performance-based criteria is highly compatible with achieving institutional diversity and does not lower graduation rates. Evidence from a natural experiment in Texas after the implementation of the “top 10 percent” law supports this conclusion. The apparent tension between merit and diversity exists only when merit is narrowly defined by test scores.

Diversity, Opportunity, and the Shifting Meritocracy in Higher Education

This study develops a comprehensive theoretical framework regarding the evolution of the class divide in postsecondary education. I conceptualize three prototypes of class inequality—effectively maintained, declining, and expanding—and associate their emergence with the level of competition in college admissions. I also unearth the twin mechanisms, exclusion and adaptation, that link class hierarchy to a highly stratified postsecondary system in an allegedly meritocratic environment. Intra- and inter-cohort comparisons reveal that while the class divide regarding enrollment and access to selective postsecondary schooling is ubiquitous, it declines when competition for slots in higher education is low and expands during periods of high competition. In such a regime of effectively expanding inequality (EEI), a greater emphasis on a certain selection criterion (like test scores) in admission decisions—required to sort the influx of applicants—is bolstered by class-based polarization vis-a-vis this particular criterion. This vicious cycle of exclusion and adaptation intensifies and expedites the escalation of class inequality. The results show that adaptation is more effective than exclusion in expanding class inequality in U.S. higher education.

http://people.socsci.tau.ac.il/mu/salon/files/2010/10/the-evolution.pdf

The Evolution of Class Inequality in Higher Education: Competition, Exclusion, and Adaptation

The process by which students decide whether and where to attend college has been based most commonly on a college-choice model that is independent of the students' geographic context. However, the ability to attend college close to home is often among the most important factors that U.S. high school students, especially minorities and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, consider. The study presented here mapped the place of residence of a national sample of high school seniors, as well as the location of all colleges within commuting distance of each student, and showed that seniors have a wide range of colleges in proximity. Furthermore, after taking account of important student and zip code-level factors, the study found that each additional college in proximity is associated with a small but significant increase in the odds of applying to college, especially a four-year college. These findings suggest that researchers should stop treating the college-choice process as though it were independent of lo...

College Proximity: Mapping Access to Opportunity:

The longitudinal study of Australian children: Annual statistical report 2010

Social origin and college opportunity expectations across cohorts

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Social origin and college opportunity expectations across cohorts