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Judging colleges based on the amount of economic mobility they produce is an increasingly popular way to gauge college quality. There’s just one problem: Data that measure mobility have limitations that are often ignored in the policy community. https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/economic-mobility-conundrums-a-closer-look-at-the-opportunity-insights-university-rankings/ /1
Consider the 100 “best” colleges in promoting economic mobility, as defined by the @OppInsights researchers. 75 of them are located in just 3 states–New York, California, and Texas–despite the fact that these states have only 23% of colleges nationally. /2
Have the colleges in these states figured out the secret to promoting economic mobility among their former students? That’s doubtful. In reality, these colleges benefit from factors and circumstances well outside of their control. /3
Excellent research by Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner (see https://www.nber.org/papers/w25479 ) has pointed out that local labor markets and regional income inequalities may give some colleges an unfair advantage in popular mobility rankings, such as the one created by @OppInsights. /4
That’s because, when defining economic mobility, researchers rely on the *national* income distribution to define high- and low-income, even though some states have local economies that look very different from these national averages. /5
For example, NY, CA, and TX have many jobs that pay above $55,800, the cutoff set by @OppInsights for early-30 year olds to be in the top national income quintile. Unsurprisingly, colleges in these states do very well in the mobility rankings. /6
To be sure: Is the economic mobility created by colleges located in these states valuable and real? Yes. Should these colleges automatically be viewed as more superior than others by virtue of their state’s labor market? No. /7
Some healthy skepticism is in order when mobility rankings find that 85 of the 100 “best” colleges are located in the 10 states with the most amount of income inequality, while *zero* are located in states with the lowest levels of income inequality. /8
And even more skepticism is warranted when nearly one in five colleges are effectively excluded from the rankings due to an arbitrary way that these colleges filed a federal tax form . Over 350K students attended these “excluded” colleges, including a dozen state flagships. /9
What does this mean for lawmakers hoping to use economic mobility as the way to judge and reward colleges? There will be significant limitations—all of which will hinder the usefulness of such measures. /10
The bottom line: Mobility rankings have very limited use. Rankings are correlated with many factors unrelated to colleges themselves. If there’s a “secret sauce” for creating economic mobility, it’s to locate your college campus in New York City. Or maybe Los Angeles. /11
For our full analysis on university mobility rankings, and for more reasons why these rankings can lead to a skewed view of college quality, see the new @AEI report from me and @delislealleges, released today. https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/economic-mobility-conundrums-a-closer-look-at-the-opportunity-insights-university-rankings/ /End
