Predicting Postsecondary Pathways: The Effect of Social Background and Academic Factors on Routes through School

• In Event: 2359 - Higher Education

Abstract

Access to higher education has increased in recent decades; however, increased access has not led to parallel increases in degree completion among all types of students. Students of lower class backgrounds are consistently more likely to follow college paths associated with lower rates of degree completion. While scholars have examined the causes and consequences of short-term enrollment patterns, or “transitions,” they have yet to examine the long-term postsecondary “trajectories” students experience. Building on status attainment theory and the literature on educational transitions, I extends our understanding of this stratification process. I ask: (1) What is the empirical reality of the postsecondary trajectories students experience? (2) How do academic and social background factors shape the likelihood of students following particular postsecondary trajectories? Utilizing the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 I employ optimal matching sequence analysis techniques to uncover common educational trajectories. I find that there are five distinct postsecondary trajectories that students experience variants of: a traditional path, a lateral transfer path, and vertical transfer path, a two-year path and an unstructured path. I next use the trajectories as a dependent variable exploring what leads individuals on certain paths, and I find that the path one follows is shaped by both ascribed and achieved characteristics. Social class background has a particularly strong effect in shaping who follows which long-term postsecondary trajectory.

Author

• Rebecca L. Boylan, Purdue University