This paper examines the influence of higher educational credentials on the two work qualities of job authority and work complexity, and asks whether education provides white and minority men and women comparable access to jobs involving such work. Findings are based on a follow-up study of 3,525 Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites who attended the City University of New York after initiation of an open-admissions policy in 1970 and were employed full-time in 1984. Among the findings are that open admissions increased access to jobs involving complex work and authority among individuals who would not have gone to college in the absence of the policy. However, the burden of past educational and economic disadvantages with which minorities entered college diminished educational attainments, thereby hurting chances to compete for good jobs. In addition, labor market conditions favoring Whites over minorities with similar education and work experience imposed a further constraint on access to desirable work. Yet, especially for the large number of Blacks and Hispanics who earned bachelor's and postgraduate degrees, the quality of work life is well ahead of where it would have been without the opportunity created by the policy. A gender-linked pattern of college majors and subsequent occupational attainments that limited women's chances for the best rewarded positions was also found. Results indicate that open admissions add to opportunity in the labor market, but effects are limited by wider institutional conditions. Contains 75 references. (GLR)