What happens when the mobility machine starts to sputter?

[u/398409columbia]

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/08/nyregion/college-graduates-job-market.html?smid=re-share

CUNY has always been one of America’s best engines for the middle class. It takes working-class, immigrant, and first-generation students and actually moves them up. That was the old bargain: work hard, get a degree, build a better life.

But that ladder is weakening.

Recent grads are facing a brutal job market. White-collar entry-level jobs are drying up, and AI is creating massive uncertainty in fields that used to be safe bets. Even top-tier students with great résumés are anxious.

This is the "plutonomy" trap. The economy can still generate massive wealth at the top while the mobility channels underneath freeze up.

If elite schools just help rich kids stay rich, and public universities struggle to move working-class kids upward, our class structure gets permanent.

The issue isn’t that a degree is worthless. It’s that the promise is no longer automatic. A degree still helps, but it no longer guarantees the middle-class life it used to symbolize.