Best Colleges For Social Mobility

College Search & Lists
1

The main reason most students attend college (and why most parents pay to send their children to college) is so the graduates can get a good job and earn enough money to live the life the student and parents envision.

This is true whether the student comes from a middle class family, a wealthy family, or a poor family. However, less well-off families don’t just want their efforts to be rewarded. They need their efforts to be rewarded as much as possible.

Here is a US News WR list that rates colleges based on those that deliver the best upward social mobility to students. The universities ostensibly take students and provide the best improvement in their financial outcomes, comparing pre-college SES to post-graduation SES, than other colleges.

UC (California publics) are heavily represented, taking the top three spots, and seven of the top thirteen.

1: UC Riverside
2: UC Santa Cruz
3: UC Irvine
4: Howard University
5: Rutgers University
6: University of La Verne (California)
7: UC Merced
8: Georgia State
9: UC Davis

10: UC Santa Barbara

11: U of South Florida
12: Florida International
13: UC Los Angeles
14: Edgewood College (Wisconsin)
15: U of IL Chicago
16: U of Findlay (Ohio)
17: CUNY (NYC)
18: UT Rio Grande Valley
19: University of the Cumberlands (Kentucky)

20: UT Arlington

21: Mary Baldwin (Virginia)
22: UC San Diego
23: Montclair State (NJ)
24: The Sage College (NY)
25: SUNY Stony Brook (NY)
26: Portland State U
27: Cal State Fresno
28: St Catherine U (Minnesota)
29: SUNY Albany (NY)

30: U of Houston

31: UMass Boston
32: UNC-Greensboro
33: U of Incarnate Word (Texas)
34: Biola U (California)
35: Hampton U (Virginia)
36: Keiser U (Florida)
37: Pace U (NYC)
38: U of FL
39: East Carolina University (NC)

40: St John's U (NYC)

41: U of the Pacific (California)
42: Chatham U (PA)
43: Grand Canyon U (AZ)
44: NJ Institute of Technology
45: Florida A&M
46: Florida Atlantic U
47: Gallaudet U (Washington DC)
48: Virginia Commonwealth U
49: Lincoln Memorial U (Tennessee)
50: Our Lady Of The Lake U (Texas)

2

With some exceptions, I find it interesting that this list is mostly comprised of universities that do not appear in the top 50 or top 100 of most college lists. No Ivies, no MIT, no top ranked LACs.

And with rare exceptions, state flagships aren’t the best in their state for delivering social mobility on a wide basis. Riverside is # 1, not Berkeley. Georgia State is the highest rated school in the state, not U of Georgia. ECU is better at this than UNC.

Thoughts?

3

University of New Mexico is tied at #62, with Rutgers Univ Camden, Clarke U, and UT San Antonio.

4

I think it’s likely to be at least in part bc a higher proportion of the students at these colleges come from more deprived backgrounds to start with, so they see bigger improvements from a college education.

5

That isn’t an explanation, it’s merely a description of what is happening.

Acceptance to “elite” colleges is determined by criteria that are heavily tilted towards the wealthy. The relationship between standardized testing and wealth has been well studied, as has the relationship between GPA and wealth. The type of extracurricular activities which provide the largest boosts for admissions to “elite” colleges also generally require financial resources, like athletics, academic competitions, clubs, etc. Of course, there is much heavier recruitment from higher income populations - high schools in low income communities do not have representatives of Ivy league colleges holding college visits, and legacies are almost all wealthy (at least the ones who are accepted), as are the children of faculty/staff, and finally, donors are all very wealthy.

I will repeat - “elite” colleges were established to educate the children of the wealthy, and have not “strayed” from that unofficial mission all that much. As such, they are not geared to provide that boost in social mobility for students from low income background.

On the other hand, the public colleges and universities were specifically set up to do that, and many, in their quest for “prestige”, have failed miserably in that mission. Nonetheless, others lead the way, as this list demonstrates. There are also private colleges which were established for that very same purpose, and they also can be seen on this list.

6

I agree. Most “elite” colleges make weak attempts to seek and enroll low income students. I would like to see private schools with large endowments try a little harder to increase efforts in that direction, but I accept it is their decision to make. After all, they are private institutions, and as long as they are not breaking any laws, they should be allowed to cater to the customer base they choose.

I think every state should be mandated to have their enrollment demographics roughly correlate to their population demographics. Not a quota, but an opening of the system to all corners of the population.

If the state is failing to educate all k-12 students equally, those populations should not further suffer by being shut out of the state’s public university system. States have a moral obligation to ensure all segments of the state’s populations have the opportunity to be educated equally. When the state is failing to ensure all segments have an equal opportunity, that is a failure of the state, not the students. At what point does the public hold states responsible? If we recognize that certain categorized students are not “college ready” in wide swaths, public universities have two options that should be enacted concurrently.

First, admit these students to the state’s public college system and either work hard to ensure resources are available to make the students “college ready” on the fly, or accept that lower graduation rates will result.

Maybe, just as colleges have Honors Colleges to cater to mostly upper income high stats students, public universities (including flagships) can roll out Horatio Alger Living Learning Communities for the population segments currently underrepresented in those colleges. Instead of a 4-year program, put these students on a pre-planned 5-year or 6-year plan that includes more prep classes so they won’t be set up for failure – and ensure that the financial aid stretches for those 5-6 years. But the university system’s first obligation is to offer admission to the entire state equally, not just certain demographics. To begin, maybe states should agree to admit as many Horatio Alger students have they have in their Honors Colleges?

Secondly, work harder to improve the k-12 outcomes across the board. Once all k-12 students are educated to equal levels, those state university systems can enjoy the higher graduation rates that some states so desperately seek, without shirking the state’s obligation to offer college education fairly to all student demographic bases.

The public universities’ obligation is to all segments of the population.

7

Some states do a much better job of admitting all segments of their population. And some states have already implemented the necessary aids. Too often, it is left to private donors to fill in the gaps.

For instance, Arizona relies heavily on the Fleischer Scholars Programs, set up by a billionaire to help large groups of low SES high school students prepare for college and graduate from college. That is a very admirable program, but it is something the state of Arizona should duplicate and effectively double the number of students who are allowed an equal opportunity to earn a college education.

Every state should be working to duplicate the FSP in their flagships. And not look solely for donors, but use public funds to ensure equal opportunity for service at a public institution.

8

Within a given state (and its overall policy regarding low SES access to its state universities, including admissions and in-state financial aid related policies), higher SES students have significant advantages in opportunities during K-12 to earn the usual measures of merit for college admissions (GPA, test scores, etc.). In addition, they are less likely to be financially constrained to living with parents and commuting to a local university because that costs less than living at the university (unless the flagship offers financial aid to cover that cost). So it is no surprise that higher SES students are better represented as residential students at state flagships than they are at the same state’s other state universities.

In addition, some state flagships attract a substantial number of out-of-state students who typically come from higher SES families who can afford the higher out-of-state price and lack of out-of-state financial aid. Budget-limited state flagships see such students as bringing in much-wanted cash.

9

Explicitly telling students up front that they will probably need 5-6 years for a nominally 4-year degree program may be a tough sell, even though lots of college students actually do take 5-6 years to complete a nominally 4-year degree (even though they may have thought that they were going to take 4 years when they started).

The college telling the admitted high school senior from a weak K-12 district that s/he will probably need more than 4 years may be being honest about it, but the high school senior may see that as more of an insult and choose a different college that does not say that – even though that same student at the other college is similarly likely to need more than 4 years.

10

Some rather obviously favor the higher SES, such as by having legacy preference in admissions (about 30% of state universities have legacy preference in admissions).

Many more are budget-squeezed as states defund state universities (often by a lot when an economic downturn reduces state tax revenues), so being accessible (through financial aid) to lower SES state residents becomes more difficult to achieve.

11

I agree it would be a tough sell for some students. Maybe many students. And I know that some students go into college thinking 4 more years of education is all they want, not 5 or 6.

There will be students who appreciate the design of a 5 or 6 year plan that includes more resources specially designed for students whom the state has not educated properly in k-12. Just as there are students who eagerly flock to community colleges, knowing they will benefit, at that point in their lives/education, more from what a CC offers than from 4-yr college without the resources and specially planned programs to help students like them.

Realistically, this won’t be immediately embraced and offered to hundreds of students per college per year. At best, a state would do it and offer it 20-40 students at a couple of colleges in its system. And it could grow from there as its success dictated, quickly or slowly.

12

I have have had a front row seat Georgia St. (8th on the list) so I am not surprised by it being ranked so high. I have seen many of my wife’s students become 1st gen. graduates from Georgia St. Some of the public schools on the list are probably on lists for getting the most “bang for the buck” for in-state students as well.

I do believe that most kids want to hear the “truth” about graduation statistics, but most students (even those who maybe ill-prepared for college) will generally believe that they are the “exception to the rule” and finish school in 4 years without any interruptions.

I have had that discussion with students over the years who were not prepared enough (needed remedial classes freshman year) and they always thought of themselves as the exception even though it was expressed that they could not have any “hiccups” to graduate in 4 years. I can only think of 2 students out of at least 15 who finished in 4 years who fit that demographic. Less than half of those students have graduated in 6 years, because their 18 year old self could not see all of the family, school, and financial struggles that would derail getting a degree (despite my warnings).

13

I’d add Manhattan College to that list. They were named #1 on Money magazine’s list of “transformative schools”, defined as students who do better after graduation than would be expected by their high school grades and test scores. Since the list is composed by “Money”, they obviously emphasize postgraduate earnings in their criteria. Manhattan’s Engineering and Business schools help to boost the alumni earnings. Unlike many of the public’s on the list above, it’s a small, private liberal rats college.

14

How much of the delay in graduation that you observed was due to mainly financial reasons (e.g. had to work a lot of hours and therefore could take fewer courses per semester) versus mainly academic ones (e.g. poor high school preparation leading to difficulty handling full course loads)? Or was it that they often had both kinds of challenges (with the combination being worse than either alone)?

Some colleges have tried getting worse-prepared students to do the remedial courses during the pre-frosh summer, which would be less expensive for both the college and students than an extra semester, and also does not have as much of a marketing disadvantage as telling the student that the college expects him/her to need more than 4 (academic) years to graduate. However, students in financially stressed situations may not want to pass up earning money during the summer to help pay for school, even if the pre-frosh summer program were no cost to them.