Measuring and Explaining a College Dignity Divide in America

Abstract

Prominent, multidisciplinary perspectives on inequality in America contend that receiving a four-year college degree matters not just for life chances but also for achieving a sense of dignity or respect from others. In this study, the authors assess subjective dignity, or dignity as perceived in one’s own life, according to four-year college degree status and how it overlaps with different economic and psychosocial college-linked resources. Drawing on multiple years of national Gallup survey data (2017 and 2021), the authors find a college gap in subjective dignity as large as the difference linked to full-time work itself. Consistent with Lamont’s perspective on America’s dignity crisis, a lack of perceived socioeconomic standing in society most strongly coincides with why those without a college degree also perceive a lack of dignity within their lives, although finances, work, perceived control, and mattering to others all significantly coincide with the college dignity gap as well.