Organizations and Effectively Maintained Inequality in U.S. Graduate Education: Racial Sorting by Degree Program Quality Measures

• In Event: Power, Privilege, and Positionality in Higher Education

Abstract

An extensive sociological literature documents horizontal educational stratification at the baccalaureate level. We extend this line work to the leading edge of educational expansion by examining racially-stratified sorting of post-collegiate graduate degree seekers during a period of rapid expansion in graduate enrollments and graduate student borrowing. Building on theories of effectively maintained inequality, we conceptualize graduate education as an engine of horizontal organizational stratification that differentially sorts degree seekers into programs of varying quality at the institutional- and degree-type levels. Nationally, we find substantial racial disparities in the income premiums and additional student loan debt associated with graduate degree attainment. Analysis of administrative data on graduate program-level average earnings and debt, along with the racial composition of subsequent student cohorts, finds substantial racial sorting occurring both at the institution and degree-type levels, such that programs with lower earnings and higher debt graduate significantly higher proportions of Black students.

Authors

• Kwan Woo Kim, University of California-Merced

• Adam Goldstein, Princeton University

• Charlie Eaton, University of California-Merced