In the past, I used data that permitted one to determine the percentage of a college’s students born to low-income parents who by their 30s managed to reach earnings in the upper 40% of household income. This intergenerational measure of upward mobility is useful, but it gives little insight into the factors that help or hinder students’ access to a better life, such as how long it will take to pay off the cost of their education. The data also failed to spell out the extent, in comparison to other schools, to which each college promotes the mobility of low- and moderate-income students.

To address these concerns, this year I used an Economic Mobility Index (EMI) prepared for by Michael Itzkowitz, former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. The EMI ranks 1,320 bachelor’s degree-granting institutions by how well each provides economic mobility for its students. All the colleges in the 2023 NCAA women’s tournament are found in this index. 

To assess the degree of economic mobility the tournament schools provide their less-resourced students, the percentage of Pell Grant recipients (a proxy for low family income) at each college is multiplied by its percentile rank on return on investment (ROI) that the school offers these students versus other colleges.

The ROI itself is obtained from the total out-of-pocket cost of attaining a degree and how much more a bachelor’s recipient earns 10 years after enrolling in college than a high school graduate. For example, if a four-year college costs $60,000 and its graduates earn $15,000 more than they would have without a bachelor’s, it would take them approximately four years to recoup their education costs ($60,000 in costs divided by $15,000 in additional earnings). The result of multiplying a college’s percentile rank on its ROI for lower-income students by its proportion of such students determines its placement within the EMI. Therefore, the EMI captures both the proportion of underresourced students served and the strength of the return graduates receive from their educational investment.

The importance of these calculations is this: If a school provides a very strong ROI to lower-income students but enrolls mostly those from middle- and upper-class backgrounds, it cannot be said to be a good source of economic mobility. Therefore, the EMI rewards schools for both their proportion of lower- and moderate-income students and the additional ROI it provides them. 

This year’s national women’s champion, California State University-Sacramento, appears in the NCAA tournament for the first time. Although the Hornets lost to UCLA in the first round, the players gave it their all, as they did in winning the Big Sky Tournament. Sacramento State, one of only four California teams in the tournament, greatly deserves to be at the top of our Social Mobility Tournament Bracket. 

Of the 1,320 schools in the sample, Sac State ranks 19th with an EMI of 48.4%. And it does this while serving a student body with nearly 53% Pell Grant recipients, an amazing 15,200 of whom on average take just 1.2 years to pay down the total net cost of their education. Tom Hanks would surely be proud of his alma mater’s role in providing that measure of upward mobility to so many.

Rounding out our Final Four are the Rebels of UNLV, the Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee and the Mocs of Chattanooga, all of whom unfortunately lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. These schools, along with the University of South Florida and UCLA (which, sorry to say, faced Sacramento too early in our bracket) range in rank and EMI from 85th to 192nd and from 33.3% to 26.3%. To get to these figures, these schools enroll large numbers of disadvantaged students who on average can pay back the cost of their degree in 2½ years or less. With such a low opportunity cost, these students can attain family-sustaining earnings early in their working life. In effect, however exciting it is to win games — and exciting it is, indeed — these results are what ultimately matter most for the athletes, as few of them will ever be drafted by the WNBA. 

With college affordability top of mind, it bears digging a bit into the cost of the participating schools. The net price for lower-income students to earn a degree at Sac State is $26,700; at South Florida, it’s $25,000. As a flagship institution, UCLA charges an average of $10,000 more for its degree. For the top 17 teams on the Social Mobility Tournament bracket, the average cost of a degree is $35,800. Of course, these are mostly public universities, the schools most Americans count on to reach living-wage jobs. 

As for access, our top 17 colleges manage to serve over 127,000 Pell students. But adding in the next highest-performing 26 colleges in our bracket — those where, on average, the degree can be paid down in less than two years — means a whopping 1,222,600 Pell students are on the road to earning, on average, more than $30,000 per year than someone with only a high school diploma. These 26 additional schools have an average EMI of over 20%, and none have an EMI rank higher than 519th out of the 1,320 colleges in the index.

All in all, with minimal exceptions — such as the scrappy Pioneers of Sacred Heart, who rose past the NCAA’s First Four only to be felled by the Stanford Cardinal, and who, on average, take 5.6 years to pay for their degree — the schools in the tournament make it possible for their lower-income students to pay down the cost of their bachelor’s in less than three years. This is amazing, considering that 4 out of 10 schools in our database average well over 6½ years to do the same, and students at 264 of these schools take on average 14 years or more to earn back their investment in their education.

The school that wins the NCAA tournament trophy has every right to celebrate its prowess on the court. After all, it’s not easy to defeat six teams with winning records while millions watch. But colleges such as those making a run for the Social Mobility Tournament championship are also worthy of celebration for succeeding so well at helping thousands of disadvantaged students climb the earnings ladder leading to the American Dream of economic well-being. 

While we can’t wait to see who makes it to the Elite Eight and on to the Final Four, we look forward to the time when colleges that win in our parallel bracket, as Sac State has done, proudly announce on T-shirts, advertising and websites that they are “Income Mobility Champions.” 

March Madness is indeed a great escape, but social mobility is the great escape. 

Once again, March Madness has taken hold of much of the nation as this month’s NCAA men’s Division I basketball tournament gets off the ground. As we have done over the past six years, we take this opportunity, when the nation is focused on figuring out which colleges produce the best basketball teams, to examine which of the participating schools are the best at preparing their students for life beyond college. 

We undertake this exercise by creating a parallel bracket — the Social Mobility Tournament Bracket — that plots the colleges invited to the Big Dance by how well or how poorly they help their students reach the American Dream of upward mobility. 

For most middle-class, traditional-aged college students, life after graduation can be a very scary time. If they have ended their studies, their scheduled and predictable life is abruptly interrupted by the start of an uncharted trajectory of adult responsibilities. Given that fewer than one senior in 75 playing in the tournament will be lucky enough to be drafted by an NBA team, this applies as well to most of the athletes eager to show their skills on the court this month.

For low-income students, often racial or ethnic minorities and frequently the first in their families to go to college, the challenges can be far greater. Consequently, while all schools are responsible for equipping their students with the skills, habits and knowledge they will need to have rewarding careers after graduation, those institutions serving low- and moderate-income students have an even greater obligation to make sure they are doing the right thing.

Schools that do well for their students should be recognized as true champions; colleges that fail to do so should be pointed out as needing improvement. It is with that mission in mind that each year we have created a parallel bracket of winners and losers, where economic mobility, rather than prowess on the court, is celebrated.

In years past, we have used the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights dataset to spotlight the extent to which disadvantaged students enrolled in the tournament’s colleges have managed to reach family-sustaining earnings by their early 30s. In particular, each school has been mapped on a bracket where winners and losers are determined through a mobility rate that represents the percentage of students born to parents in the bottom 40% of income distribution who reach earnings in the upper 40% of household income. 

While this comparison of achievement across generations has been useful, growing concern around college access, affordability and post-collegiate earnings has called for more comprehensive tools by which to understand the value of college for individuals and the nation. Consequently, beyond how well or how poorly schools help make intergenerational advancement possible, today it is important to know which colleges are worth their tuition cost in time and money; how long a student will have to work to pay off that cost; and what proportion of each college’s less-resourced students is being placed on the path to financial security.

With that in mind, we have used a new dataset for this year’s Social Mobility Tournament Bracket. This dataset was developed and analyzed by Michael Itzkowitz, former director of the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard. With these data, he created ‘s Economic Mobility Index (EMI) that ranks 1,320 bachelor’s degree-granting institutions by how well each provides economic mobility for its students.

Itzkowitz used publicly available information from the U.S. Department of Education and the Census Bureau to ascertain each college’s rank on the index. First, he determined the return on investment that lower-income students obtain at each of these 1,320 colleges, by calculating the out-of-pocket costs required to obtain a four-year degree. The EMI then considers the additional financial benefits students obtain by attending one of these schools. This earnings premium is defined as the additional income these graduates make in comparison to someone with only a high school diploma. In sum, the lower the out-of-pocket costs and the higher the earnings premium, the quicker a student will receive a return on the investment needed to obtain the degree.

The EMI also considers the proportion of lower- and moderate-income students a college enrolls. If the school provides a very strong ROI to lower-income students, but enrolls mostly students from upper-class backgrounds, it cannot be said to be doing a good job at providing economic mobility. Therefore, the EMI also rewards schools for the proportion of lower- and moderate-income students it enrolls in addition to the ROI it provides them.

In effect, this year, we are taking into consideration not only the percentage of students who move up the economic ladder, but also the size of the group of low- and moderate-income students a school places on the escalator to a better life. In doing so, colleges that rank highly in our updated bracket may be quite different from those that in the past would have made it to the Final Four and beyond.

For example, the Final Four in last year’s Social Mobility Tournament Bracket were Marquette, Providence, Notre Dame and Bryant. Compared with the other schools in the 2022 tournament, these had the highest percentages of students who climbed to the top 40% in earnings though their parents were in the lowest 40% of income. This feat is certainly admirable. But taking into consideration the relatively small number of low-income students who out-earned their parents, we find that these schools have had a very small impact as social mobility promoters. In fact, their EMI rank, respectively, is 558th, 844th, 925th and 1020th out of the 1,320 institutions in the index. 

As the parallel bracket shows, of the 32 teams making it past the first round, 27 are public colleges and universities. These are the workhorse schools providing students with many of the services and programs that can best lead to widespread upward mobility. And chief among their virtues is the reasonable net cost for their degrees, hovering on average around $39,000.

That leaves us with a Sweet Sixteen composed only of public colleges, the best of which make for an Elite Eight with EMI scores averaging 28.9% and all with an EMI rank above 346.

The Final Four in this year’s Social Mobility Tournament Bracket have EMI rankings worthy of detailed attention. The Houston Cougars — seeded No. 1 in the Midwest Region — have an impressive EMI score of 34.9% while ranking 67th in the index. Cougars can take pride in the fact that it takes them less than two years to earn the cost of their degree. Meanwhile, the Sun Devils at Arizona State, ranked 95th, on average pay back their undergraduate degree in a mere 1.2 years — and they do it with about 36% of their undergraduates on Pell Grants. UC-Santa Barbara’s Gauchos are not far behind, with a 106th ranking and a payback period of 1.6 years, and all while serving a student body where over a third are Pell Grant recipients.

That brings us to this year’s national champion, Florida Atlantic University. At 36%, the school has the highest EMI score among the tournament’s participants and ranks 63rd of the 1,320 colleges in the sample. This means two important things: On average, Florida Atlantic Owls take only one year to pay down the total net cost of their degree, and this feat is accomplished with an undergraduate population of nearly 39% low- to moderate-income students.

All in all, these winners in the race to provide the most mobility to the greatest number of students are worth celebrating and supporting no matter how well or poorly their teams may perform in the NCAA tournament. Colleges like these represent not only the best hope for tens of thousands of today’s most challenged students, but also the best answer for a nation hoping to prepare its residents to compete in a progressively polarized world.