Serendipity or Strategy? The College Housing Search and Inequality

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 4: Social Networks, Identity, and Inequality in Student Experiences

Abstract

Housing arrangements provide the foundation for social life and interaction in college. However, we know little about how students locate housing. This study contributes to the literature on housing, search strategies, and class inequality by examining the ways in which students draw on formal and informal channels in the housing search. Based on interviews with 40 undergraduate students across three universities, we find that socioeconomically disadvantaged students primarily pursued formal channels in their housing search, including official websites and requests for tours, which limited their options for locating housing. In contrast, socioeconomically advantaged students described greater reliance on informal channels to locate and secure housing, such as help from friends, family, and organizations passing down housing, which provided access to off-campus housing within walking distance of campus. Although socioeconomically advantaged students and students with organizational connections learned about housing search strategies from others in their networks, students who relied on informal channels attributed their housing outcomes to luck. By attributing outcomes like inheriting a house through an organization to serendipity, students underestimated the salience of economic, cultural, and social resources in the housing search. This study adds to existing literature by illuminating the role of divergent housing search strategies in reifying class inequality among undergraduate students during college.

Authors

• Virginia Riel, North Carolina State University

• Olivia Ball