Three ways to read a college

Mobility rate
Share of all students who start in the bottom income quintile and reach the top quintile as adults. The headline number — it rewards both access and outcomes.
Upward (success) rate
Of the students who came from the bottom quintile, the share who reach the top. How well the college lifts the low‑income students it does enroll.
Access
Share of students whose parents are in the bottom income quintile. Many elite schools post high success but low access — they admit few low‑income students.
Highest mobility rate
Bottom → top quintile
  1. Vaughn College Of Aeronautics And Technology · 16.4%
  2. CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College · 12.9%
  3. City College Of New York - CUNY · 11.7%
  4. CUNY Lehman College · 10.2%
  5. California State University, Los Angeles · 9.9%
  6. CUNY John Jay College Of Criminal Justice · 9.7%
  7. MCPHS University · 9.3%
  8. Pace University · 8.4%
  9. State University Of New York At Stony Brook · 8.4%
  10. New York City College Of Technology Of The City University Of New · 8.3%
Best upward rate
Lifts its low-income students
  1. Saint Louis College Of Pharmacy · 91.9%
  2. MCPHS University · 91.3%
  3. Albany College Of Pharmacy And Health Sciences · 85.2%
  4. California Maritime Academy · 85.0%
  5. Rose - Hulman Institute Of Technology · 78.2%
  6. Advanced Institute Of Hair Design · 77.9%
  7. Kettering University · 74.7%
  8. Harvey Mudd College · 74.3%
  9. Claremont Mckenna College · 68.3%
  10. Babson College · 68.2%
Broadest access
Most low-income students
  1. United Talmudical Seminary · 61.0%
  2. South Texas College · 52.4%
  3. Franklin Career Institute · 50.0%
  4. University Of Texas At Brownsville · 47.4%
  5. Southern Careers Institute · 47.1%
  6. Boricua College · 46.6%
  7. Moultrie Technical College · 46.4%
  8. International Career Development Center · 46.1%
  9. CUNY, Hostos Community College · 45.8%
  10. Mississippi Valley State University · 45.5%

The access gap at the top

At the most selective colleges, money still buys a seat

Opportunity Insights linked admissions records to tax data across the Ivy‑Plus. Holding scores constant, the richest families still get in at far higher rates — and the advantages that drive it don't make for stronger graduates.

At the same SAT/ACT score, children from top‑1% families are twice as likely to attend an Ivy‑Plus college as middle‑class kids with identical scores.
About two‑thirds of that gap comes from admissions advantages — legacy preferences, athlete recruiting, and non‑academic ratings — not from scores or essays.
0
Those same tip factors (legacy, athlete, non‑academic) don't predict post‑college success — so they tilt access without improving outcomes.

…and the elite‑college premium is real once you're in:

+60%
Attending an Ivy‑Plus (vs. a flagship state school) raises a student's chance of reaching the top 1% of earnings by about 60%.
≈2×
It roughly doubles the odds of attending an elite graduate school.
≈3×
And roughly triples the odds of working at a prestigious firm.

Source: Chetty, Deming & Friedman, "Diversifying Society's Leaders? The Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges" (2023). Paper ↗ The mobility tables above show the flip side: which colleges already move low‑income students up.

Frequently asked questions

Short, sourced answers about college mobility, the Opportunity Insights study, and what the numbers actually measure.

What is a college mobility rate?

A college's mobility rate is the share of its students who started in the bottom 20% of the U.S. household-income distribution and reached the top 20% of earners as adults. It combines two factors: access (how many low-income students the college admits) and upward rate (how many of those students reach the top quintile). It is the headline metric in Opportunity Insights' Mobility Report Cards.

Where does the college mobility data come from?

Opportunity Insights' Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility (Chetty, Friedman, Saez, Turner, and Yagan). The researchers linked tens of millions of college admissions records to IRS tax filings — both the parents' income and the student's adult earnings, measured in the early-to-mid-30s.

Which colleges have the highest mobility rate?

Public colleges with high low-income access dominate the top of the mobility ranking — including CUNY Bernard M. Baruch College, California State University-Los Angeles, California State University-Long Beach, City College of New York, Stony Brook University, the University of Texas-Pan American, and other CSU and CUNY campuses. Elite private universities rank lower on mobility because their access is low, even when their upward rates are high.

How is college mobility different from selectivity?

Selectivity measures how hard it is to get in. Mobility measures whether a college actually turns low-income students into high-earning adults. The two often diverge: the most selective Ivy-Plus colleges admit very few students from the bottom income quintile, so their headline mobility rate is small even when their upward rate is excellent.

What is the difference between upward rate and access?

Upward rate (also called success rate) is the share of a college's low-income students (bottom quintile) who reach the top income quintile as adults — it measures how well the college lifts the low-income students it does enroll. Access is the share of all the college's students whose parents are in the bottom quintile — it measures how many low-income students the college admits. Mobility rate = upward rate × access.

Do the most selective colleges admit fewer low-income students?

Yes. Opportunity Insights' study of Ivy-Plus admissions linked admissions records to parent tax data and found that, holding SAT and ACT scores constant, students from the top 1% of income are roughly twice as likely to be admitted as students from the bottom 80%. The advantages driving the gap (legacy preferences, athletic recruitment in lightly recruited sports, non-academic ratings) do not predict stronger graduate outcomes.

How many colleges are in the mobility dataset?

Approximately 2,199 U.S. colleges. Income quintiles are national. Child earnings are measured in the early-to-mid-30s. Figures reflect the cohorts in the published Opportunity Insights data.

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