Unequal returns to academic credentials as a hidden dimension of race and class inequality in American college enrollments

•Data show democratized access to the AP program over time for U.S. high school students.•I examine changes over time in the effects of AP participation on college attendance across groups.•Results show increased effects for privileged students but decreased effects for the disadvantaged.•Thus, democratized access to a credential may lead to inequality in the value of the credential.

This study asks whether growing access to academic credentials for students from disadvantaged groups will lead to a decrease in the value of those credentials for these groups in college enrollments. Drawing on credentialing theory and the concept of adaptive social closure, I argue that as certain academic credentials become democratized (i.e., more accessible to disadvantaged students), their value decreases for students from disadvantaged race and class groups at the same time as it increases for students from privileged race and class groups. To test this idea, I use data from two cohorts of American high school graduates to estimate changes in the educational payoff of participation in the Advanced Placement (AP) program for students across racial and social class groups. The results show that at the same time as students from disadvantaged groups gained wider access to the AP program, its effect on their rates of college enrollment declined. During the same time period, the AP effect on the rates of college enrollment for students from privileged groups increased. I conclude that unequal returns to academic credentials for privileged and disadvantaged students represent a hidden dimension of race and class inequality in American college enrollments. Moreover, the results demonstrate the possibility that as access to an academic credential democratizes, as is the case with the AP program, privileged groups are better able to insulate themselves from the negative effects of credential inflation.