A Better Way to Promote Equality of Opportunity Through Education

“Now is no time to double down on a crumbling status quo. Instead of universalizing college and directing young people through a single pathway to opportunity, we should be multiplying pathways to opportunity.”

Since the 1960s, college enrollment and degree completion in the United States grew massively, guided by a genuine desire to expand educational opportunity. Over time, this effort produced two related effects on the nation’s education and employment systems. In K-12 and postsecondary education, the mantra “college for all” became the rallying cry of countless policymakers and advocates. In employment circles, the college degree became the default credential for many jobs. Today, this approach has produced calls for free community college, student loan debt forgiveness, and other proposals that continue to expand opportunity by increasing access to higher education, especially for students from under-resourced populations.

Regrettably, rather than expanding opportunity, these approaches work to lessen it while also heightening inequality. Currently, there are signs of major changes in K-12 and postsecondary education and with employers that point to multiple pathways to opportunity that do not necessarily depend on “college for all” or the college degree as the gateway credential for a job. These changes are welcome because they create a more pluralistic and equitable approach to educational opportunity.

The Changing Environment

Two trends stand out today when examining postsecondary education and employment.

First, there is a growing sense that higher education in the United States is a bubble market about to burst. For example, colleges are closing. By one count, since 2016, 72 public and private nonprofit colleges have closed, merged, or announced plans to do so. Moreover, higher education’s business model is “fundamentally broken,” with many institutions not bringing in enough revenue to cover costs, often because they discount their sticker price tuition, which has vastly outpaced inflation. Demographics are also changing, with the pool of 18-year-olds declining and fewer high school graduates going directly to college. And while there are more disadvantaged young people entering college, completion rates show large racial and ethnic disparities that undermine opportunity. Among students who started in four-year public postsecondary institutions, black students had the lowest six-year completion rate (45.9%), followed by Hispanic (55%), whites (67.2%), and Asians (71.7%).