Review by Choice Review
Attewell and Lavin, City University of New York (CUNY) sociologists, have written a fine empirical study of the long-term effects of open admissions. When CUNY offered admission to any New York City high school graduate in 1970, some feared plummeting graduation rates and worthless degrees. Six-year graduation rates are quite low. However, this new survey 30 years later shows that 71 percent graduated eventually. CUNY graduates earn significantly more than high school graduates do. Moreover, they raised their own children with more pro-education culture, and thus sent more of their own kids to college. The authors show similar national numbers. There are significant racial differences in how the CUNY students of the early 1970s turned out, with whites doing better than Hispanics, and quite a bit better than blacks. This was not due to the colleges, however; the whites had better educational backgrounds coming out of high school, and the blacks were much more likely to have kids while in school, and were much less likely to marry. Two weaknesses of this study stand out: the authors only measure how good the education was by income, and they only studied women. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. B. Weston Centre College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
