Beyond a bachelor’s: Stratification in graduate school enrollment

Abstract

Graduate study has rapidly expanded since the late 1990s, with women overtaking men in their enrollment in all levels of graduate degree. Once thought to be a relatively meritocratic space, due to increasing selection as educational transitions move into higher degrees, more recent research on graduate education has shown it to be a space where intergenerational inequalities emerge. In this paper, I examine the intergenerational association between parent educational level and student enrollments across two nationally representative cohorts. I find that across cohorts, the parent education gradient may have reduced for Master’s and MBAs, has remained stable for professional degrees, and may have increased for PhDs. Intergenerational advantages may be particularly strong for men, and the children of professionals. Further, I find that accounting for post-college factors does little to attenuate associations between parent education and children’s graduate enrollment. These findings highlight the enduring importance of parent education across the final educational transitions.