The U.S. has a stratified hierarchy of college and universities. Consequences of this stratification include large disparities in the returns to higher education between levels of postsecondary institutions, and gaps by race and income in terms of where students enroll that, together, have the potential to reproduce longstanding social inequality.…

To make the abstract idea of "college readiness" legible for public purposes, readiness indicators have tended to treat students identically: If a student meets a simple benchmark, he or she is ready for any college. This shorthand ignores that indicators of readiness may differ according to students' backgrounds and where they choose to…

We measure college enrollment selectivity gaps by race-ethnicity using a novel method that is sensitive to both the level (2- vs. 4-year) and selectivity of the college in which students enroll. We find that overall Hispanic-White and Black-White enrollment selectivity gaps closed in the United States between 1986 and 2014. This overall closing of…

In this study we examine trends in segregation by race and ethnicity in higher education from 1985 to 2013. We have three key findings. Over the past 30 years, students from different groups have attended college at increasingly similar rates; gaps are decreasing. But these decreases have been driven largely by large increases in minority student…