Broken promise of college? New educational sorting mechanisms for intergenerational association in the 21st century

Previous studies have shown that intergenerational socioeconomic association becomes weaker as children's education level increases and is negligible among college graduates. A college degree is known as the great equalizer for intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. Recent studies, however, reported that the strong intergenerational association reemerges among advanced degree holders although it stays weak among BA-only holders. Despite the substantial theoretical importance and policy implications, the mechanisms behind the reemergence of the intergenerational association at the post-baccalaureate level have been less studied. In this paper, we examine the association between parents' education and children's earnings using the 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2017 National Survey of College Graduates data. Our results show that the strong intergenerational socioeconomic immobility among advanced degree holders is fully attributable to three educational sorting mechanisms: children from high-SES families (1) obtain expensive and financially rewarding advanced degrees, (2) attend selective institutions and major in hyper-lucrative fields of study such as law and medicine in graduate school, and (3) complete their education at a younger age and enjoy income growth over more years in the labor market. Implications of these findings are discussed.