Social Mobility

As on-campus study and life fall victim to Covid-19, experts say such students will suffer as a result.

For one such graduate, Andrew Pérez, commencement marked an accomplishment for his whole family. Now there would be no ceremony, no cap and gown, no pomp and circumstance.

Anne Case and Angus Deaton diagnose the deadly despair that arises from the lack of a college degree. The current crisis only exacerbates the problem.

Students in remedial courses are more likely to struggle with virtual instruction. But a return to in-person classes is far from guaranteed.

For teaching experts in some of the nation’s poorest communities, the pandemic has meant 18-hour days and worries about the economic and emotional health of their instructors and students.

Amarillo College’s “No Excuses” program has become a national model.

Over the past decade, student-loan debt has ballooned to an unprecedented size. What does the data say about who holds America’s $1.5-trillion student-loan debt?

How a once-fringe idea went mainstream.

Presidents must do more to confront employer bias.

College Unbound removes barriers and empowers students to drive the curriculum. But can it succeed on a larger scale?

This regional gathering attracts teenagers from small-town high schools that few admissions officers ever visit. Here’s how it changed one student’s perspective on college.

A pilot federal program embeds guidance counselors in housing projects to help chart students’ paths to college. As one of those counselors discovered, sometimes the biggest obstacles are cultural.

Social mobility has stalled, and the public is losing trust. Time for universities to rethink their role in American life?

Anthony Jack beat the odds. His research focuses on those who don’t.

The federal government requires them to tally the price of off-campus housing, health care, transportation, and other expenses. But an analysis suggests that those estimates are often wide of the mark.

Higher ed is a weaker engine of mobility than it once was, and the solution lies more with board members than with debt cancellation or other populist slogans, writes a former university president in a new book.

The cost of a higher education is weighing ever more heavily on the minds of Americans. Selective flagship universities appear to be getting the message.

America likes to see itself as a meritocracy, and college as an engine of social mobility. In reality, writes Richard V. Reeves, “higher education has become a powerful means for perpetuating class divisions.” How did that happen, and what can colleges do about it?

So why do we value selectivity over social mobility?

College plays a role in reinforcing and even widening the gap between haves and have-nots. Read The Chronicle’s 2016 series exploring how.