The educational attainment of the U.S. population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education and a rising number of college graduates that outnumber high school dropouts. As a whole, the population of the United States is spending more years in formal educational programs. Post-secondary education is valued very highly by American society and is one of the main determinants of class and status. As with income, levels differ by race, age, household configuration and geography. Overall the households and demographics featuring the highest educational attainment in the United States are also among those with the highest household income and wealth. Thus, while the population as a whole is proceeding further in formal educational programs, income and educational attainment remain directly linked.
Educational Attainment in Social Theory
Bourdieu and cultural capital
Many scholars have studied educational attainment in the US as a form of social reproduction and stratification. In 1977, Pierre Bourdieu presented the idea that education leads to social reproduction and a stratified society by honoring the cultural capital of elite classes. Students who possess the valued cultural capital, according to Bourdieu, are rewarded with high academic achievement. When elite class members enter the workforce, they are channeled into high paying jobs and powerful positions within society, while those who did not achieve the same level of academic success fall into subordinate occupations and status levels. By rewarding the desired cultural capital with high academic achievement, upper classes are able and prepared to reach higher levels of educational attainment. Members of the working class, on the other hand, are not rewarded for their cultural capital in schools, and are instead socialized for working class jobs.
Lareau and concerted cultivation
Annette Lareau also addresses the factors that lead to social stratification in educational attainment. Lareau’s idea of concerted cultivation refers to an active involvement of parents in a child’s learning and development experiences by creating and controlling organized activities for their children. According to Lareau, middle class parents engage in concerted cultivation to teach their children, while lower and working class parents do not. Laureau further explains that schools firmly encourage and expect parents to use concerted cultivation as a child-rearing strategy. The child-rearing practices of lower and working class families thus do not comply with the standards of educational institutions. As a result, lower and working class students develop a sense of “distance, distrust, and constraint” in educational institutions, while children of middle class families gain a sense of entitlement. These differences in child rearing practices lead to children of lower and working class families to lack the necessary life skills that the children of the middle class possess, further isolating them from educational opportunities.
Collins and credentialism
Randall Collins contributed the idea of credentialism to the study of class-based differences in educational attainment. Collins maintains that public schools are socializing institutions that teach and reward middle class values of competition and achievement. Anglo-Protestant elites are selectively separated from other students and placed into prestigious schools and colleges, where they are trained to hold positions of power. By teaching middle-class culture through the public education system, the elite class ensures a monopoly over positions of power, while others acquire the credentials to compete in a subordinate job market and economy. In this way, schools of medicine, law, and elite institutions have remained closed to members of lower classes.
General attainment of degrees/diplomas
In 2005, the proportion of the population having finished high school and the percentage of those having earned Bachelor's degrees remained at an all-time high, while the growth in both categories has slowed down over the past two decades. The vast majority of the population, 85.2%, had finished high school and over a quarter, 27.7%, had earned a Bachelor's degree. The percentage of both college and high school graduates continued to increase since 2000. Since 1983 the percentage of people graduating high school has increased from 85% to 88%. The greatest increases in educational attainment were documented in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In the 1950s and much of the 1960s high school graduates constituted about 50% of those considered adults (25 and above). The young adults aged between 25 and 29, percentage of high school graduates was roughly 50% in 1950 versus 90% today.
Sex
Overall, women have surpassed men in terms of completing secondary and post-secondary education with the gender gap almost completely reversed. In 2006, 10.3% of males and 8.3% of females dropped out of high school. In 2005/2006, women earned 62.1% of Associate's degrees, 57.5% of Bachelor's degrees, 60.0% of Master's degrees, and 48.9% of Doctorates. In 2016/2017, women are projected to earn 64.2% of Associate's degrees, 59.9% of Bachelor's degrees, 62.9% of Master's degrees, and 55.5% of Doctorates.
Race
While the educational attainment of all races increased during the 1990s, with the gap between African Americans and non-Hispanic European Americans decreasing, severe differences between the races remain, especially among those with a Bachelor's degree or higher. Asian Americans had the highest educational attainment of any race, followed by European Americans who had a higher percentage of high school graduates but a lower percentage of college graduates. African Americans and persons identifying as Hispanic or Latino had the lowest educational attainment. The gap between race was the largest between foreign-born Asian Americans, over half (50.1%) of whom had a Bachelor's degree or higher and foreign-born Hispanics, 9.8% of whom had a four-year college degree. Hispanics and Latinos also trailed far behind in terms of graduating high school; it was the only major ethnic group for which high school graduates constituted less than 80% of the population. This large inequality might partially be explained thorough the influx of uneducated Hispanic Americans who had not been offered the chance to complete secondary education in their home country. Overall nearly half (49.8%) of Asian Americans, nearly a third (30%) of non-Hispanic Whites, 17.3% of non-Hispanic Blacks, and just over a tenth (11.4%) of Hispanics or Latinos had a four-year college degree. The same racial differences decrease significantly at the high school level with 89.4% of non-Hispanic whites, 87.6% of Asian Americans, 80.0% of African Americans, and only 57% of Hispanics or Latinos having graduated from high school.
A trend becomes visible when comparing the foreign-born to the native-born populace of some races. Foreign-born Asian, European, and African Americans had a higher educational attainment in terms of having earned a four-year college degree than their native-born counterparts. The opposite is true on the high school level and among Hispanics, where the dramatically lower educational attainment of the foreign-born population decreased the educational attainment of the entire Hispanic race, statistically.
Only among Hispanics and Latinos was the proportion of college graduates larger among the native born population. In the general population the proportion of persons with a Bachelor's degree or higher was the same among the foreign-born and native-born population (27.2%). As stated above fewer foreign born Americans completed high school than native born Americans. Overall 87.5% of the native born population had graduated from high school, versus 67.2%. Among whites the difference was three percentage points, the same as for African Americans. Among Asian Americans the difference was five percentage points and thirty percentage points among Hispanics or Latinos.
Income
Educational attainment has a profound impact on income in the United States. While the incomes of both men and women increased significantly with higher educational attainment (the increase becoming larger with each level), the income gap between races and genders remained at each educational level. In 2003 average incomes ranged from $13,459 for a female high school dropout to $90,761 for a male with an advanced degree. The most significant average income increase was between those who had some college education or an Associates degree and those who had a Bachelor's degree. While the former averaged $31,046 for both sexes the latter averaged $51,194, over $20,000 (64.
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