Postsecondary Education Impact on Intergenerational Income Mobility: Differences by Completion Status, Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Type of Major

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examined intergenerational mobility among former students of The University of Texas System (n = 98,199) by comparing parental household income while the students were in college to students’ income five years after exiting the system. The proportion of students who experienced upward mobility relative to their parents were estimated, using a combination of rank-rank slopes, transition matrices, and logistic regression. The results indicated that parental income and college completion are the most important of the studied factors in determining upward mobility. The majority of completers from the bottom two parental income quintiles displayed upward mobility within a few years of graduation, and among students from the bottom quintile, over half of noncompleters also had higher incomes relative to their parents. Differences in mobility rates on the basis of gender, race/ethnicity, type of major, institution type, and financial aid type were also explored.