“Parents play a surprising role in deploying their networks to help their offspring get jobs,” said Elizabeth Armstrong, a University of Michigan sociologist and co-author of Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.¶¶Meanwhile, she added, for first-gen students, who are often low-income, “simply getting a college degree doesn’t mean you’ll catch up to people born with advantage.¶¶“There is definitely inequality at play.”¶¶Getting their children to and through college, then into some lucrative career, isn’t enough for well-off parents, said Armstrong. “For the affluent,” she added, “making sure their children marry well, and that their grandchildren go to nice preschools, are the goals. Transfer of class privilege and wealth is a lifelong project.¶¶“It’s opportunity hoarding.”