Social Mobility Is Social Capital

• In Event: 21st Century Black Student Success at Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Racialized Models of Support for Success

Abstract

Social mobility is a primary metric for understanding the return on investment to individuals, families, and broader society. Understanding HBCU students’ social mobility is particularly important as HBCUs serve a largely economically disenfranchised population with the majority of HBCU students being Black, Pell-grant eligible and first-generation college students.   

Our study examined 50 HBCUs, representing over half of the currently operating 90 4-year HBCUs using the “Baseline Cross-Sectional Estimates of Child and Parent Income Distributions by College” data set. The dataset explicated intergenerational (involving multiple generations) mobility at American institutions of higher education. For our analysis we chose to focus on 4-year public and private not-for-profit institutions (N = 1,285). Within that, there are 50 HBCUs, representing over half of the currently operating 90 4-year HBCUs. We analyzed individual HBCUs, HBCU subgroups including UNCF member institutions (16 institutions represented in this dataset), and how HBCUs compare nationally and to “Ivy Plus” institutions3. We then compared our HBCU access, success, and mobility rates with those of the Ivy Plus institutions because of the popularity and notoriety they hold in our society.

Our findings indicated that HBCUs provide access to higher education, close access gaps, and fuel the middle class at rates significantly higher than other institution types. In comparison to PWIs, HBCUs have strikingly higher access rates despite serving a student body consisting primarily of underserved students. Over half of all institutions in our study that were above the 95th percentile of the Move into Middle Class+ Mobility Rate were HBCUs. This is evidence that HBCUs are remarkably successful at supporting social mobility among their students. Our findings also indicated the need for a more inclusive measure of social mobility that adequately captures the narratives at HBCUs and accounts for the compounding effects of racism on Black Americans and illuminates how HBCUs are successful at facilitating their students’ upward mobility. The data demonstrated that investment in HBCUs means investing in institutions that are the main drivers of success for historically marginalized people, offering them upward social mobility. Contributing to the advancement of an HBCU directly influences the continued improvement of economic outcomes for Black Americans and their families in the future. 

Author

• Miriam Hammond