“I’m Thinking of Ways I Can Go to College”: College “Choice” for Low-Income, Non-White Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 78
  In Roundtable Session: Underrepresented Groups in Postsecondary Education 1

Abstract

In this paper, we present findings from a qualitative, longitudinal study of the high school-to-college transition for a sample of low-income, Black and Latino students at two inner-city high schools in the Northeast. Drawing on multiple interviews with each of the participating students, as well as interviews with guidance counselors at each of the two high schools, we critique some of the central tenets of the “college choice” model that is so well entrenched in higher education scholarship. In particular, we illustrate how low income, non-White students’ life circumstances, both in and out of school, engender choices that preclude the college-going trajectory assumed in the college choice model.

Authors

• Rebecca D. Cox, Simon Fraser University

• Stefan Perun, Seton Hall University

• Kelly E. Wilk, Seton Hall University