Colleges as "Engines of Upward Mobility": Institutional and State-Level Factors Predicting College Mobility Rates

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 78
  In Roundtable Session: Institutional Influences on Student Experiences

Abstract

Higher education is both a facilitator of upward mobility as well as perpetuator of longstanding educational inequities in society. New evidence from mobility report card data developed by Chetty and colleagues (2017) show for the first time the variability among colleges and universities in facilitating upward income mobility for their students. Using multiple sources of nationally representative data, this study employs ordinary least squares regression with the potential for multi-level modeling to clarify institutional and state-level factors that contribute to differences in mobility rates among higher education institutions.

Author

• Elaine W. Leigh, University of Pennsylvania