Low-Income and First-generation Students at Elite Colleges: I Made a Place for Me

• In Event: 2359 - Higher Education

Abstract

Drawing on interviews with 13 low-income students from a small, highly selective college in the northeast, this study explores students’ sense of belonging and social connections. Findings indicate that students felt they did not fit in their home communities and thus expected to find belonging in college. These expectations were not met when students arrived on campus and interacted with their primarily affluent peers; in response, students cultivated friendships aligned with their racial/ethnic and class identities. Students discuss their belonging forged in these groups, separate from affluent peers. Students saw these friendships as beneficial for shielding them from isolation and supporting their success in college. I conclude by speculating about whether their self-segregation within the campus community, while giving them bonding social capital, could result in their gaining fewer advantages of elite college attendance, such as bridging social capital that can offer access to upward mobility. This study, therefore, highlights the tension that low-income students face in forging social ties on elite college campuses and what this means for their college experience and long-term outcomes.

Author

• Emily Parrott, UW-Madison