factual

College attendance tracks parental income rank

In the United States the probability of attending college is almost perfectly predicted by parents' rank in the income distribution—near 100% for children of the top 1% and close to zero for the bottom 1%—an extreme inequality of access that Zucman finds shocking, with tuition fees blocking working-class access to four-year colleges.

factualpending

Speaker

Gabriel Zucman

Evidence Quote

how well your probability to attend college is predicted by the rank of your parents in the income distribution. That is, it's almost a perfect 1-to-1 correlation.

Source

Gabriel Zucman on Inequality, Growth, and Distributional National AccountsEconTalk
Created: 6/13/2026, 12:26:44 AM

My Notes

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