Ability, Not Heritage: Why Expanding University Access Often Fails to Narrow Intergenerational Educational Gaps

Thomas Åstebro (), Henrik Hällerfors (), Andreas Bergh () and Joacim Tåg
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Thomas Åstebro: HEC Paris, Postal: and Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://www.ifn.se/en/researchers/affiliated-researchers/thomas-astebro/
Henrik Hällerfors: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, Postal: and Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://www.ifn.se/en/researchers/graduate-students/henrik-hallerfors/
Andreas Bergh: Department of Economics, Lund University, and, Postal: and Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Box 55665, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden, https://www.ifn.se/en/researchers/ifn-researcher/andreas-bergh/

No 1538, Working Paper Series from Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Abstract: Many countries have established new local colleges to increase access to education for disadvantaged populations. However, many of these expansions have not reduced educational inequality. Drawing on evidence from a large-scale college expansion initiative, we find that increased college availability did not lead to a differential increase in attendance among students from parents with less education. Rather, the expanded access primarily benefited students with marginal academic ability. These results suggest that higher education enrollment is largely determined by inherent scholastic ability and that the expansion of higher education tends to attract students at the upper margin of this ability distribution.

Keywords: Intergenerational correlations; University expansion; Access to education; Higher education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I24 I28 J24 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2025-10-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lma and nep-ure
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