The Impact of Family Social Class on College Enrollment
Today in society the determination for a college degree lies beyond education towards future financial security. While college debt seems to be ever increasing, students from low-income families are less likely to attend college due to the financial hardship. The social class that a student’s family falls into shows correlation in whether that student will or will not attend college (Peske & Haycock, 2006).
By looking at the social class of families I will be examining the connection between family social class and college enrollment. Through the use of the ecological perspective I will be looking at the individual student, family, and neighborhood as micro effects with social class as a macro effect. Using this perspective I will be able to compare many aspects of
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On the local level schools are funded through property taxes in which a higher income neighborhood have schools with better resources such as career centers, labs, and programs that are attractive to university’s. As such, students from well-funded schools benefit from the resources and programs the school can offer to help excite students about college. While low income schools, students learn from outdated tatted textbooks. Similarly stated from The Education Trust report “…some stand in state of-the-art classrooms with brand new smart boards and bookshelves stuffed to the brim. Others, however, gaze at peeling paint and water stains on the ceiling, at empty shelves and blackboards with no chalk” (Ushomirsky & Williams, 2015). In making this comment, Ushomirsky & Williams give us the details in how two neighborhoods of different class in the same city face education in two very different ways. The effects of neighborhood are gran in the role they play for students to enroll in
The first determinant of one’s fate is their family’s background. Almost none of the children from low-income families made it through college. With the expenses of college today, I’m actually not surprised by that statistic. Of the children from low-income families, only 4 percent had a college degree at age 28, compared to 45 percent of the children from higher-income backgrounds. "That 's a shocking tenfold
Recently there has been a lot of debate about the importance of college education. Students are asking if it’s worth the debt to attend a four year university or community college. Some are thinking what are the benefits of a degree is in the workforce. With college tuition increasing and state fundings lowering, low income students are struggling to attain a higher education. College institutions should have a role to provide students higher education and equal opportunity to students to increase social mobility yet intergenerational reproduction of privilege has produced inequality in education.
The expanding gap between the cost of college education and the growth of household income is also putting a restraint on the higher education ambitions of many American families. Amid 2000 and 2013, the average level of tuition and fees at a four-year public college rose by 87 percent; during that same period, the median earnings for the middle fifth of American households grew only 24 percent. That's a tendency that education researchers predict isn't sustainable. This gaps represents a a variation in the idea of college education from a social to an individual
Low-income students are up to 30 percent less likely to attend college than their higher income peers (Goodman, 2010). With some states increasing the amount of merit-based aid while decreasing the amount of need-based aid, additional research is needed to determine the effects on low-income student enrollment in those states (Zhang & Ness, 2010). Effective strategies for increasing the number of college-educated individuals must improve academic preparation, access to higher education, and persistence in college among the population least likely to attain that education, i.e., low-income students (Alon, 2011).
In this course, we have learned about different social classes and how they developed over time. In fact, the idea of social classes has been around before what we know it as to today. The concept has not changed. The “higher” classes usually have land, money, and jewels. The “lower” classes are broke, servants, and no valuable possessions. Prior to this course, I only knew of the upper class, middle class, and lower class. In today’s society, the separation between classes is not as bad as it use to be. School is an example of this. I grew up in Cobb County, Smyrna- Vinings area and I went to school with people who parents are CEOs of companies, successful entrepreneurs or even music artist. I would consider my family middle class but we did have students who were also lower class families. Some higher-class families enroll their children in private school. Private schools charges tuition whereas public schools are free of cost. The upbringing up children can determine their social status in schools. In this essay, I will discuss “cliques” and their differences in high schools.
“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.
In the article “The Color of Family Ties: Races, Class, Gender, and Extend Family involvement” by Naomi Gerstel and Natalia Sarkisian, there is a theory that they believe in reality, people misunderstand the wrong concept of family involvement. In this case, we need to realize this conflict is still happening in the societies. Base on the authors’ data, Black and Latinos/Latinas families show that they likely to have less education than the whites families therefore black and Latinos/Latinas will focus on reply the helps from the members of the families rather than being independent (49). Toward more, Gerstel and Sarkisian also discuss
Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many
Families are now aiming low when it comes to college- or are simply not going at all. Money could play a huge part in this decision- after all, the cost of college has skyrocketed over the years, and so has the amount of student loan debt. This is something even Leonhardt admits, stating that, because of this, only about 33 percent of young adults get a four-year college degree today, while another 10 percent receive a two-year degree (Leonhardt). And even though many colleges offer financial aid packages, that money may soon be cut and the cost of college will continue to grow. It is true that, in my personal experience, just because a student is awarded financial aid does not mean they have a golden ticket to University. This leaves many desperate students the only option of taking out as many loans as they think they can handle- often more than they should. Debt is not a new issue for America, but it is still a problem. Although David Autor, an M.I.T. economist, laments: “not sending [young adults] to college would be a disaster”, no one can ignore the rising rates of loan defaults, and some think it
The literature thus firmly supports the thesis that socio-economic status is directly correlated with academic success, due to the superior financial and social capital resources available to the middle-class student. Furthermore, the interdependence between multiple factors means that the cumulative impact of risk factors may be greater than the simple sum of separate factors (Sparks, 1999:10)
In demonstrating social class differences in school choice decisions, the first perspective is that the tighter budget constraint of low income families is sufficient to explain their inability to purchase houses next to popular schools, pay for private tuition for entrance tests, or take long journeys to school. Under this account, the basic preferences of lower and middle class families for schools are different. Lower class families are not blessed with all luxuries that why they cannot allow expenses of private schools. Unfortunately disadvantaged families cannot enroll their children in preferred schools. They drive for public or religious schools which are almost no cost
"We are shaped by society 's structures," is the primary concept of the idea developed by C. Wright Mills (Henslin). In this paper, I will demonstrate how my social class affected my family life and education.
I could best describe my family being from a lower-working-class socioeconomic status during my childhood years. I base my answer on the fact that my father came to the United States as a migrant-worker when he was only 12 years old, never finishing up middle school. After years of coming back and forth from Mexico to the U.S. my father finally establish himself and meet my mother who only finished middle school. The biggest stress my family experience during my childhood was after the fact that my parents separated and my father gain full custody of me and my two siblings. Since he didn't have any family in the U.S. he was forced to take us (his children) to Mexico to be under the care of our grandparents while he stayed in the U.S. working
We all have a family, but we all have grown up in a different way. Social class plays a huge role in family life. Three of the connections between social class and family include kin, child rearing, and education levels.
Social class can play a big part in the evolution of a student’s education. For most students growing up, all that crosses their minds is having fun and enjoying their childhood regardless of where they come from. Once students’ start to recognize life after high school, it is no longer about fun and games, instead they turn to their parents for guidance. This is where social class comes into the equation. A student from a poor background will start to realize that they must work harder if they want to continue their education and pursue college. All they are exposed to is what they notice their parents are doing for a living. In most cases this revolves around getting a low-paying job and living on a tight budget. This is all the student is exposed to and if their parents don’t know much about college they can’t expose their children to different paths, and students tend to be confused. Compare that to a student who that comes from a middle-class or rich family with more exposure to the world and the different career paths. They are more aware of the opportunities that are around them. These students know that going to college will guide you to success. Thus, by comparing the difference between low and high-class, learning that success doesn’t come easy, and realizing that colleges affect the kinds of opportunity a person gets, proves that social class controls student’s paths to success.