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The Role Of Higher Education In Intergenerational Mobility, Amanda Davis Simpfenderfer

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Within the US, higher education is viewed as a stepping stone to economic and social mobility, where the promise of improved socioeconomic outcomes continues to draw many students to enroll despite the increasing cost of attendance (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019). The implicit (and sometimes even explicit) promise is that a post-secondary degree is a pathway to upward mobility for all individuals. Yet, higher education is not a monolith, nor are the students attending a homogenous population. Students experience differential outcomes based on their demographics (Baum et al., 2013), as well as institutional type (Thompson, 2019). The purpose of …