In the postindustrial economy, educational attainment, especially postsecondary educational attainment, has replaced the concept of class as the primary marker for social stratification. Since World War II, access to education beyond high school has become the main mechanism driving access to middle-class earnings and status.
Our analysis of data from the Current Population Survey shows that high school dropouts and high school graduates who lack postsecondary education are losing their middle-class status.
People with some college or an associate degree have lost some ground, but they have done much better in retaining middle-class status than high school graduates and dropouts. People with bachelor’s or graduate degrees either have stayed in the middle class or have moved up into the top 30% of income earners. As a result, earnings inequality between those with at least some college and those with no more than a high school diploma has spiked. We increasingly are a nation of postsecondary “haves” and “have-nots.”
As a result, America is falling behind in the global race to develop human capital. Postsecondary enrollments and completions in other advanced nations are growing much faster than in the United States. At their current pace, those nations likely will expand their lead at the sub-baccalaureate level and eventually overtake the United States in bachelor’s degree attainment.
How will we know when we are headed in the right direction in reforming education beyond high school? We believe that the first sign that we are building a fairer and more effective system will be when college funding and program quality depend more on prospective graduation rates than on students’ scores on admissions tests.