Measuring social class among college students: a research note

A multitude of studies has focused on the measurement of social class in the general population. College students, however, are in a state of transition from an ascribed status to an achieved status, and thus, pose a special problem for the measurement of social class. Using a national probability sample of 1177 college students, 5 measures of social class were compared. Intercorrelations demonstrated that the father's education is the most reliable measure of social class since it was the most highly intercorrelated with other measures, was constant from year to year, could be easily remembered, and was generally known.