TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bailey,Martha J.
AU  - Dynarski,Susan M.
TI  - Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 17633
PY  - 2011
Y2  - December 2011
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w17633.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Martha J. Bailey
University of Michigan
Department of Economics
611 Tappan Street
207 Lorch Hall
Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1220
Tel: 734/647-6874
Fax: 734/764-2769
E-Mail: baileymj@umich.edu

Susan Dynarski
University of Michigan
Weill Hall
735 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-3091
Tel: 734 615 5113
Fax: NA
E-Mail: dynarski@umich.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2012-05-01
AB  - We describe changes over time in inequality in postsecondary education using nearly seventy years of data from the U.S. Census and the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth.  We find growing gaps between children from high- and low-income families in college entry, persistence, and graduation.  Rates of college completion increased by only four percentage points for low-income cohorts born around 1980 relative to cohorts born in the early 1960s, but by 18 percentage points for corresponding cohorts who grew up in high-income families. Among men, inequality in educational attainment has increased slightly since the early 1980s. But among women, inequality in educational attainment has risen sharply, driven by increases in the education of the daughters of high-income parents. Sex differences in educational attainment, which were small or nonexistent thirty years ago, are now substantial, with women outpacing men in every demographic group. The female advantage in educational attainment is largest in the top quartile of the income distribution. These sex differences present a formidable challenge to standard explanations for rising inequality in educational attainment.
ER  -