Upward mobility is a scam, and most of us have already been duped.
To my dad, “the American Dream” meant being able to create a better future for his children; in other words, to ensure I had opportunities that he did not. My dad was a college dropout, and so was my mom. For most of my childhood, we lived from paycheck to paycheck. But he was determined to help me make something more out of my life. The most important step on the road to a better future, at least to him, was for me to go to college.
High school teachers and guidance counselors promote the same agenda, as do the colleges themselves. But statistics show that upward mobility is increasingly unlikely for most Americans, and the rates of relative intergenerational mobility, the stuff my father’s American dreams were made of, haven’t improved in years, even though millennials like me are ostensibly the most-educated American generation to date.
Earning a college degree can improve your chances for economic mobility, but the college you attend does matter. Where you were born on the economic ladder helps, too. Middle-income students have better odds of earning more than their parents than most lower-income students do. Ivy League schools offer low-income students the greatest chance for mobility, with 60 percent of graduates who started in this study’s bottom economic quintile going on to reach the top quintile. Some top-tier colleges even offer free tuition to students whose parents earn less than $60,000 a year, or thereabouts.
But free tuition only helps if you can make it through the admission-process gantlet. College admissions already favor the wealthy, with more opportunities available for affluent, well-connected students living in major metropolitan areas than for rural, economically disadvantaged students.
Even parts of the application process that seem superficially impartial contribute to the college admissions gulf. Standardized tests like the SAT, for example, are supposed to indicate your aptitude for learning and the likelihood of your success in higher education. In reality, test scores are a stronger indicator of your parents’ socioeconomic status and your race than they are of your ability to learn.
“This is due to multiple variables in the K-12 educational system,” Billy R. Thomas, the vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Many minority students attend schools that are under-resourced, have high student-to-teacher ratios, have no AP courses, and are lacking in tutoring and counseling services. This places them at a distinct disadvantage and generates a small pool of minority students with high ACT or SAT scores.”
Students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds also have fewer opportunities for extracurricular advancement. These kids often have to work to provide for their families, or are tasked with looking after siblings while their parents work to do the same, leaving little time for volunteering, playing sports, or other activities that could help their college applications stand out.
It’s no surprise that college enrollment gaps persist between the children of the wealthy and those from households that earn less than $65,000 per year. In 2017, the New York Times published an interactive article to illustrate those gaps. According to that data, 38 American colleges, including five out of eight Ivy League schools, have more students from the 1 percent than they do from the bottom 60, leaving many colleges to perpetuate the problem of economic stratification even as they promise to fix it.
Even worse: Though college enrollment among lower-income students is increasing, they are still much less likely to complete their education than their more affluent peers. Students who are already economically disadvantaged may be saddled with more debt if they choose to take out student loans. The astronomical price of college makes education at elite universities feel out of reach. Many students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds don’t bother applying to elite schools, feeling that the odds are stacked against them. Even if they do get in, they won’t be able to pay for tuition, much less room and board in pricey college towns.
Meanwhile, being a “legacy,” a child or grandchild of an alumnus, can tip the odds in an applicant’s favor, especially at world-renowned institutions like Harvard. The children of major donors are more likely to get in, too, as are athletes, regardless of their grades. Such practices shouldn’t come as a shock, nor are they illegal, unlike the recent college admissions scam that involved wealthy parents (and even a couple of recognizable actors) using bribes to cheat the system. The high-profile debacle shows how the college admissions system is already broken. The only major difference between what those parents did and how rich parents often make donations to their target schools is that the former is under the table, while the latter is aboveboard.
Applicants from wealthy families already have significant advantages over their less affluent counterparts. Many attend elite private high schools where they can choose from AP classes and enrichment activities. They have access to tutors, extracurricular activities, and volunteer opportunities. If all of that doesn’t pad their applications enough, they might slip in with help from a parent’s legacy status. And if all else fails, their parents can contribute to the college’s endowment.
But what about the rest of us?
Rebecca Renner is a writer and professor from Daytona Beach, Florida. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic’s CityLab, and Pacific Standard. Follow her on Twitter @RebeccaRennerFL and read more of her work on rebecca-renner.com.