Graduate Education and Social Stratification

Abstract

Graduate and professional education play an increasingly important role in economic inequality and elite formation in the United States, but sociologists have not subjected stratification in and through graduate education to the same level of scrutiny recently applied to undergraduate and sub-baccalaureate education. In this review, we discuss how prominent stratification theories might be extended to studies of the role of graduate and professional education, and we review research about stratification at junctures along student pathways into and through postbaccalaureate education to the labor market. Especially in doctoral and professional education, we find persistent stratification, including pronounced educational inheritance and disparities in participation and degree attainment by race/ethnicity and gender. We propose future directions for inquiry, highlighting unanswered questions and conceptual issues concerning how the field of and pathways through postbaccalaureate education contribute to social stratification.

Sustaining change towards racial equity through cycles of inquiry

“…At the postsecondary level, racial inequities are observed in several ways, including through institutional data that reveals unequal access and outcomes of racially and ethnically minoritized groups in hierarchically stratified and segregated educational systems (Carnevale & Strohl, 2013;Posselt et al, 2012). 3 Stratification is evident in disparate rates of student access and departure from different types of institutions (e.g., research universities, community colleges, for-profit colleges; Harper, Patton, & Wooden, 2009;Hurtado, Alvarez, Guillermo-Wann, Cuellar, & Arellano, 2012;Illoh, 2017;Sáenz & Swan, 2018), fields of study (e.g., STEM, social sciences, applied fields such as business; L. D. Patton, 2016;Posselt & Grodsky, 2017), high status or well-resourced programs (e.g., honors colleges, undergraduate research, study abroad; Museus et al, 2015), and graduate study (Garces, 2013;Posselt & Grodsky, 2017). As we show in our results, the practitioners in this case study moved through two cycles of inquiry and instituted changes in multiple institutional policies and functions of the university, including student recruitment, admissions, advising, curriculum policies, governance, and institutional assessment.…”

Intergenerational Mobility at the Top of the Educational Distribution

“…The sample of non-citizens and naturalized citizens is highly heterogeneous in terms of country of origin, time of arrival to the US, and circumstances while growing up, challenging the interpretation of this findings. We expect that further research will examine the mobility trajectories among the growing number of international PhD holders in the United States and other advanced industrial countries (Posselt and Grodsky 2017).…”

“…The second factor accounting for the observed meritocratic power of higher education refers to unobserved selectivity of those who attain advanced levels of schooling. Students from disadvantaged origins face greater obstacles to pursue graduate education than their more advantaged peers in terms of academic preparation, prior student loan debt, and the opportunity cost of education (Perna 2004;Posselt and Grodsky 2017). As a result, low-income youth who pursue education beyond compulsory levels are likely to be positively selected on unobserved attributes, such as motivation and ability, which may have substantial returns in the labor market (Mare 1980(Mare , 1993.…”

“…What we call "graduate level" is a diverse collection of post-BA programs ranging from 1-year Master's degrees with nearly universal admission rates to selective professional and doctoral degrees. These programs vary widely in their admissions criteria, selectivity, and economic returns (Posselt and Grodsky 2017). A pronounced earnings gradient exists, with first professional degrees such as medicine and law at the top, followed by doctoral degrees, and masters' at a far distance (Day and Newburger 2002;Ma, Pender, and Welch 2016;Posselt and Grodsky 2017).…”

“…However, since the mid-1980s earnings returns to college have barely grown while returns to graduate degrees have skyrocketed, contributing to the concentration of income at the top(Autor 2014;Lemieux 2008;Posselt and Grodsky 2017;Valletta 2015). Not surprisingly, graduate degree holders are overrepresented among the upper income and wealth echelons in American society, and their wealth advantage has grown over time(Fisher et al 2016;Keister 2014).…”