It’s a depressing idea: College—that integral part of the American Dream, and a key ingredient in social mobility in the U.S.—could actually prove to be not as helpful for working-class kids as it is for their more affluent counterparts.
And the two sociologists proposing this controversial theory didn’t arrive at their conclusions lightly, either. In “Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality,” Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T. Hamilton describe the year they spent living on the dorm floor of a large Midwestern university, the more than 200 student interviews they performed over the course of five years … and the 2,000 pages of field notes that followed.
In other words, they immersed themselves in the scene to see what was really happening on campus—or at least inside one particular dormitory hall, from which, they say, it’s easy to extrapolate.
LearnVest spoke to Hamilton, as well as undergrads who describe themselves as working class, to find out why this could still be happening in America in 2013, and what you need to know to choose the right school.
Why Class Matters at College
While most freshman, regardless of provenance, move into similarly utilitarian dorm rooms, those interchangeable cinderblock walls often do little to level the playing field in the long run, say Armstrong and Hamilton.
What they found is that if two students of equal ability, with parallel aims, arrive at the same school—yet one is from a less-advantaged background—the forces at work on college campuses today mean that she may not complete her degree, may feel socially ostracized and may have a harder time finding a job after graduation.