A startling discovery—that job market success after college is largely random—forces a reappraisal of education, opportunity, and the American dream.

As a gateway to economic opportunity, a college degree is viewed by many as America’s great equalizer. And it’s true: wealthier, more connected, and seemingly better-qualified students earn exactly the same pay as their less privileged peers. Yet, the reasons why may have little to do with bootstraps or self-improvement—it might just be dumb luck. That’s what sociologist Jessi Streib proposes in The Accidental Equalizer, a conclusion she reaches after interviewing dozens of hiring agents and job-seeking graduates.

Streib finds that luck shapes the hiring process from start to finish in a way that limits class privilege in the job market. Employers hide information about how to get ahead and force students to guess which jobs pay the most and how best to obtain them. Without clear routes to success, graduates from all class backgrounds face the same odds at high pay. The Accidental Equalizer is a frank appraisal of how this “luckocracy” works and its implications for the future of higher education and the middle class. Although this system is far from eliminating American inequality, Streib shows that it may just be the best opportunity structure we have—for better and for worse.

"Based on hundreds of interviews with business school graduates and the employers that subsequently hired them, Streib’s book ultimately argues that college is not, in itself, the great equalizer; the impossible-to-navigate job market is." - Inside Higher Education

"“[Streib] examines an important segment of the labor market that gets relatively little attention: entry-level positions for midtier jobs . . . Far too much energy and ink are spent on who gets the most elite jobs, who goes to the most elite schools and how terribly unfair the whole process is. Little of that conversation describes the reality for most Americans. The role of the good-but-not-elite college affects far more people and gives us much more insight into the state of economic mobility than Ivy League statistics.”" - Wall Street Journal

"“One of the biggest myths out there is that the job market, unlike other spheres of life, rewards merit. But it largely rewards luck. Most employers in large mid-tier markets are not seeking excellence. They just want reliable people who can do the job. And that is, in many ways, a good thing, argues sociologist Jessi Streib.”" - Los Angeles Review of Books

"The book is packed with sociological thinking rather than sociological theories and concepts. It is well written and should provide undergraduates with many insights about all career phases, from the job search to the separation. Undergraduates will have many of their assumptions challenged, especially that inequalities at work may not be based on connections, skills, information, or knowledge, but on luck. 'Luckocracy' may be difficult to face. However, Streib makes a compelling argument that luck plays a larger role in decision-making than students have been taught to believe." - Choice