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U.S. young adults in the 2000s and 2010s entered a national labor market that was highly stratified by education. While the socioeconomic consequences of a four-year bachelor's degree are well documented during this period, less is known about the consequences of seeking a sub-baccalaureate credential. I analyze the employment, earnings, and student debt outcomes associated with several sub-baccalaureate experiences differentiated by enrollment, credential level, and for-profit attendance using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-1997 Cohort. Using fixed-effects regression models, I find that certificates and associate degrees are associated with employment advantages relative to a high school diploma. However, young adults with some two-year college and no credential or a certificate have no higher earnings than those with a high school diploma. Sub-baccalaureate credentials can also be costly, as those who attend a for-profit college have more student debt than those who do not. Results shed light on labor market inequality among a large but understudied segment of higher education and underscore the importance of considering debt alongside labor market outcomes in analyses of the socioeconomic consequences of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nearly a third of students whose parents do not have bachelor's degrees become first-generation college graduates and over a third of students with at least one parent with a bachelor's degree do not become continuing-generation college graduates. We apply insights from social reproduction theory to study educational mobility, examining which factors are associated with becoming a first-generation college graduate and not becoming a continuing-generation college graduate. Drawing on data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that students with low educational origins who become first-generation college graduates have parents who possess and pass down high levels of some resources for their educational level and are well equipped to use the resources they receive. Likewise, students with high educational origins who do not become continuing-generation graduates tend to have parents who possess few resources for their education level, pass down few of some resources, and are less well equipped to use the resources they receive. We discuss the implications of our findings for the openness of the American educational system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]