When thinking about the American dream, we often believes that merit in equals results out—if you work hard enough, you deserve what you get. But is that always the case? Is what we earn and what we deserve equally attainable for all Americans?

In “Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility,” the authors discuss the reality of intergenerational social mobility. Their findings were diverse, but one in particular sheds insight on the issue of mobility: although the rate of low income folk entering college has increased substantially in the last decade, the proportion of those individuals attended institutions that have a high index of social mobility remained stagnant, if not worsened. In other words, more poor kids are going to college, but not colleges that end up placing them in higher socioeconomic brackets.