Daniel Cox and Sam Pressler document a disturbing element of American civic life today.

America’s civic decline has not affected all groups equally. Americans with college degrees often reside in communities with abundant civic opportunities and thriving civic cultures. They participate in associational life at high rates and have robust social and friendship networks. In contrast, the relational lives of Americans without college degrees have contracted dramatically—compared to Americans with these degrees today and without them in the past. Two institutions that were formerly crucial sources of civic connectedness for less educated Americans, unions and churches, are now more likely to serve college graduates.

Other civic opportunities are becoming stratified along educational lines. Americans with a high school education or less are more likely to live in civic deserts, lacking commercial places (e.g., coffee shops) and public places (e.g., community centers, parks, and libraries) that are hubs of community connection. Partly as a result, these Americans are less likely to participate in associational life and more likely to be socially isolated. As Timothy P. Carney writes in Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse, associational life has apparently become “a high-end good” that most people can’t access. …

… The educational gap has persisted—and even expanded—since we published our previous survey research, and it is the dividing line across nearly every domain of social capital we measure. We find substantial disparities by educational attainment and race: For instance, black Americans without college degrees are significantly more disconnected than every other group in American life. For Americans without degrees—particularly black Americans—the civic opportunities, responsibilities, and relationships that imbue life with meaning seem increasingly out of reach. …

… If America was a nation of joiners when Alexis de Tocqueville toured America in the 1830s, it is certainly not today. Most Americans are not joining groups. …

… The drop in organizational membership has not affected all Americans evenly. Americans with college degrees continue to join at relatively high rates. Americans without degrees, in contrast, are increasingly unattached.