Outliers for Equity: Choosing (and Not Choosing) College in California's Inland Empire

• In Event: College Access, Community Colleges, and Geography

Abstract

The value of a college degree is increasing, and more students from marginalized backgrounds are seeking a college education. Importantly, some schools serving marginalized communities prepare more of their students for college than others. This mixed-methods study seeks to identify schools that are outliers in college outcomes and to illuminate the processes that encourage or discourage college enrollment and persistence. Leveraging the theory of "college conocimiento" and interviews of counselors and administrators in twelve outlier schools, findings suggest that constraints to choice may expand college opportunity. Specifically, schools with high college enrollmentand persistence limited opportunities for students to opt out of college preparation, offered CTE pathways that emphasized college and career, and though often deficit-oriented, saw familial deficits as malleable.

Authors

• Suneal Kolluri, San Diego State University

• Yiwang Li, University of California - Riverside

• Thomas M. Smith, Vanderbilt University

• Robert K. Ream, The University of California - Riverside

• Cassandra M. Guarino, University of California - Riverside