ABSTRACT
American higher education has experienced massive expansion in the 20th century, especially over the last 40 years. As the majority of high school graduates in the United States came to attend college, the differentiation of educational attainment increasingly went beyond the dichotomy of college graduates versus non-college graduates. This reality encouraged greater attention to other bases on which employers could and apparently did discriminate: bases that include perceived quality of undergraduate institutions. As Fussell (1983) poignantly observed, despite the massive expansion of the American higher education system, the same percentage of students attended “colleges” today as 100 years ago. His observation pointed to the distinct hierarchy and stratification among American universities and colleges.
