Two sociologists at the City University of New York have received a prestigious and lucrative award for their research into the effects of open admissions on students and colleges.

The professors, Paul Attewell and David Lavin, have been awarded the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education, which comes with a $200,000 prize.

Their research, a study of two thousand women students admitted to CUNY under open admissions in the 1970s, found that more than two-thirds had graduated, and that their time in college had improved their annual earnings by $5000 to $10000 a year. It also found that the women’s children were better educated than the children of similar women who had not attended college.

They presented their research in a 2007 book, Passing the Torch: Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay Off Across the Generations?