Lit Review #4

Complicating Conditions: Obstacles and Interruptions to Low-Income Students’ College “Choices”
by Rebbeca D. Cox

Citation: Cox, R.D. "Complicating Conditions: Obstacles and Interruptions to Low-Income Students’ College “Choices”." Journal of Higher Education, vol. 87, no. 1, 01 Jan. 2016, p. 1-26. EBSCOhost, login.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edselc&AN=edselc.2-52.0-84949662274&site=eds-live.

An image of Cox's novel, The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another. 

Rebecca D. Cox is an assistant professor in the Education department at Simon Fraser University. 

This article presents the results of a qualitative, longitudinal study of the high school-to-college transition for a sample of 16 low-income, Black and Latino students at two inner-city high schools in the Northeastern United States. Drawing on interviews with students over a three-year period—from their junior year of high school through one year after high school graduation—this analysis highlights the interruptions to students’ postsecondary plans. In this sample, students’ actual postsecondary paths, which included delayed college enrollment and two-year college matriculation, diverged substantially from the initial plans participants developed during high school. Ultimately, the findings illustrate how these students’ life circumstances engender decisions that preclude the kinds of choices assumed in the college choice model.

Key terms: 

postsecondary access: refers to entry into a postsecondary credential program. It encompasses a broad range of programs that students can complete after high school. 

social class: a division of society based on social and economic status 

Quotes relating to topic: 

"However, for Sofia, the most arduous part of the “choice” process involved negotiating the costs of housing, transportation, and books—all after college admission and acceptance. Her trajectory—from four-year college acceptance, to matriculation at a two-year college, to non-enrollment status—points to the difficulty involved in navigating structural obstacles, rather than Sofia’s individual deficiencies. The case of Shikera illuminates a similar breach in the traditional model’s explanatory power: Shikera’s registration efforts were first stymied at her local community college, then facilitated by staff at the for-profit college. Both of these cases offer persuasive evidence that students’ college-going plans and decisions are integrally linked to individual colleges’ admissions and registration operations. Indeed, the effects of colleges’ matriculation policies and procedures on students’ collegegoing decisions form an area of research worth exploring in more detail." (23)