A Growing Divide: The Promise and Pitfalls of Higher Education for the Working Class

• Author: Douglas A. Webber
• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162211026199
• Subject Matter: Population Outcomes

94 ANNALS, AAPSS, 695, May 2021

DOI: 10.1177/00027162211026199

A Growing

Divide: The

Promise and

Pitfalls of

Higher

Education for

the Working

Class

By

DOUGLAS A. WEBBER

1026199ANN The Annals of the American AcademyA Growing Divide

research-article2021

This article is an analysis of recent dynamics in U.S.

higher education, paying particular attention to how

the market for higher education has changed since the

Great Recession and how those changes have affected

the working class. I examine the evolution of higher

education over the past decade from the perspectives

of both students and institutions, and document ways in

which the Great Recession exacerbated inequality in

access to college and outcomes among those who

attend. While the expected return to attending college

remains high, the downside risk (driven largely by stu-

dent debt and a high degree of noncompletion) is also

nontrivial. As in many other contexts, the burden of this

risk is not shared equally across the population but is

shouldered most acutely by students from low-income

backgrounds, particularly among underrepresented

minority groups.

Keywords: higher education; Great Recession; col-

lege access; state divestment

The Great Recession impacted virtually

every aspect of the modern American

economy, with the landscape of higher educa-

tion (at least in the public sector) perhaps per-

manently changed. I see the Great Recession

and its aftermath leaving access to higher edu-

cation more unequal than it was a decade ago,

and the promise of upward mobility through

higher education less attainable. Upward

mobility is less attainable in 2020 than it was in

2007 for the following reasons: the wage pre-

mium one might expect from attending college

has been stagnant; college prices have risen;

the student debt burden has grown; state sup-

port for public higher education has declined;

and the accountability system is increasingly

Douglas A. Webber is an associate professor in the

Department of Economics at Temple University. His

research focuses primarily on the fields of labor eco-

nomics and the economics of higher education.

Correspondence: douglas.webber@temple.edu