The University of Toledo The University of Toledo Digital Repository Theses and Dissertations 2013 Four-year college choice considerations among high-achieving lower-income community college students in Michigan Dilip A. Das The University of Toledo Follow this and additional works at: http://utdr.edu/theses-dissertations Recommended Citation Das, Dilip A., "Four-year college choice considerations among high-achieving lower-income community college students in Michigan" (2013). Theses and Dissertations. This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by The University of Toledo Digital Repository.
It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of The University of Toledo Digital Repository. For more information, please see the repository's About page. A Dissertation entitled Four-Year College Choice Considerations Among High-Achieving Lower-Income Community College Students in Michigan by Dilip A. Das Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Higher Education _______________________________________________ David Meabon, Ph., Committee Chair _______________________________________________ Penny Poplin Gosetti, Ph., Committee Member _______________________________________________ Mary Ellen Edwards, Ph., Committee Member _______________________________________________ Larry McDougle, Ph., Committee Member _______________________________________________ Dr.
Patricia Komuniecki, Vice Provost for Graduate Affairs and Dean, College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo August 2013 Copyright, Dilip A. Das This document is copyrighted material. Under copyright law, no parts of this document may be reproduced without the expressed permission of the author An Abstract of Four-Year College Choice Considerations Among High-Achieving Lower-Income Community College Students in Michigan by Dilip A. Das Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Higher Education The University of Toledo August 2013 The college choice considerations and decisions of high school seniors matriculating full-time to four-year colleges is well-documented.
However, a growing majority of students do not fit within the high school to four-year college group, leaving gaps in the college choice research literature. This qualitative study addresses the college choice research gap though semi-structured interviews of 17 academically talented – 3.5 or higher grade point average with over 25 college credits completed – Pell Grant-eligible community college students seeking transfer to a four-year college. All participants demonstrated high levels of motivation to complete a baccalaureate. Twelve of participants applied to only one transfer college and five applied to two.
Constraints on college choice included a variety of financial considerations, strategic recruiting strategies by four-year colleges, and a lack of detailed guidance and college knowledge. Utilizing a cultural capital framework for analysis, marked differences between the college experiences of traditional four-year students and high-achieving, low-income non-traditional community college students were found including differences based on class, race and cultural traditions. iii For Janice, Sylva, and Sofi. I’ve been a little distracted and impatient at times.
And for my parents, Sunil and Merial, and sisters, Kalpana, Monica, and Molina for their unflagging support and love. iv Acknowledgements To Dr. Dave Meabon, committee chair and tireless advocate, teacher, and mentor along the pathway of the dissertation marathon: thanks for your patience, commitment and sense of humor. The dissertation committee of Dr.
Penny Poplin-Gosetti, Dr. Mary Ellen Edwards, and Dr. Larry McDougle were insightful and patient as well in helping to guide the dissertation into a useful framework. Thank you Dr.
Monts at the University of Michigan for your unwavering support and encouragement. Finally, thank you Glenda Haskell for helping to coach me through the tricky terrain of the research process, the writing, and getting to the finish line. v Table of Contents Abstract iii Acknowledgements v Table of Contents vi List of Tables xi 1 Overview of the Study 1 1.1 Statement of the Problem 2 1.2 Purpose of This Study 4 1.1 Research Question One 13 1.2 Research Question Two 13 1.8 Significance of the Study 14 1.1 College Choice Influences 16 vi 1. Non-Traditional College Student 18 1.11 Summary 18 2 Review if the Literature 20 2.2 Two-Year to Four-Year Transfer College Choice Considerations 18 2.3 The Economics of Higher Education and Stratification 28 2.4 Development of Community Colleges, Tracking, and the Transfer Function 40 2.5 The Sociology of Higher Education, Cultural Capital, and Stratification 46 2.6 Cultural Capital, Habitus, and College Choice 50 3 Methodology 58 3.1 Study Design and Rationale 58 3.21 Research Question One 59 vii 3.22 Research Question Two 60 3.5 Data Collection & Identification of Themes 65 3.7 Trustworthiness and Limitations 66 3.1 Research Question One 72 4.2 Research Question Two 72 4.2 Summary of Participant Profiles 77 4.3 Geographical Factors in College Choice 80 4.4 Work, Loans and Financial Factors in Transfer College Choice Considerations 83 4.5 Motivation and Ambition as Factors Influencing Transfer College Choice Considerations and Decisions 86 4.1 Motivation to Transfer and Succeed From Prior Workforce Experience 88 4.2 Motivation to Transfer and Succeed With Or Without Family Guidance Or Support 92 4.3 Motivation to Transfer and Succeed From Intellectual Curiosity 98 viii 4.4 Motivation to Transfer and Succeed With or Without Counselor or Instructor Support 102 4.6 Summary 105 5 Discussion, Conclusion, and Recommendations 108 5.1 Research Question One 111 5.2 Research Question Two 111 5.2 Self-Motivation and Ambition as Major Influences of Transfer College Choice 112 5.3 Geographical and Family Constraints on Transfer College Choice 115 5.4 Financial Constraints on Transfer College Choice 117 5.5 Racial and Ethnic Constraints on Transfer Choice 121 5.6 Social Class and Cultural Capital as a Major Influence on Transfer College and Career Choice 131 5.7 Four-Year College Recruitment Constraints on Transfer Choice 138 5.1 Class-Based Constraints 141 5.2 Competitive Recruitment Strategies 142 5.3 Racial, Ethnic and Cultural Constraints 142 5.4 Transfer Choice Simplicity 142 5.5 College is work, not fun 143 5.9 Recommendations for Practice 143 ix 5.10 Recommendations for Future Research 145 5.11 What Did I Learn? 146 References 150 A Semi-Structured Interview Guide 174 B Flyer: Study Seeking Participants 176 x List of Tables 1.
79 xi Chapter 1 Overview of the Study This chapter describes the statement of the research problem, the purpose of the research and the conceptual framework and research questions that shaped the study. Following these sections are summaries of the methodology employed and the limitations of the methodology as it is utilized herein. There are over 4,000 undergraduate-serving colleges spread liberally over the United States with both a steadily increasing student diversity and student enrollment of 19 million, as of 2010 (NCES, 2010). Prospective college students may choose to attend public or private institutions, two or four-year colleges, and non-profit or for-profit: there is an abundance of choice.
A recurring theme of research in higher education, the sociology of education, and the economics of education - positioned within the large college access framework - is college choice, specifically, the considerations that guide a prospective student’s decision-making process. While considerable research has focused on the college choice process for traditional students – defined most commonly in the research literature as those enrolling full-time in a four-year institution immediately following high school graduation – less is 1 known about college choice considerations among students with so-called nontraditional attendance patterns. This large group of nontraditional college students are defined by indicators such as first-time community college enrollment, delayed entry after high school, part-time enrollment, and combining employment with school, variables that today comprise the majority of all undergraduates in the U. As Perna (2006a) has suggested, “focusing only on the college-choice processes of individuals who enroll full-time in a four-year college immediately after graduating from high school ignores a substantial portion of the college-going population” (p.
Given the paucity of research on choice considerations among nontraditional students, this study focused on a specific group of this understudied population: high- achieving, lower income community college students seeking baccalaureate degree attainment at a four-year college.1 Statement of Problem As the pace of transition from a locally-based industrial economy to a globally competitive informational age quickens, sped forward by economic shocks that shrink both wages and the workforce, the message that postsecondary credentials are required to escape poverty-level wages has taken hold (Carnevale & Strohl, 2010; Kirsch, Braun, & Yamamoto, 2007). Thus, while 71% of high school and college respondents to surveys have high aspirations for postsecondary achievement (Perna, 2006a), the educational outcomes for many of these students are unsuccessful, leaving them stuck in low-wage, limited opportunity lives (Rose, 2010). Literature in the sociology and the economics of higher education has focused on inequities in higher education increasingly during the last three decades and how those 2 structural inequities contributes to negative consequences for aspiring college students. What has been firmly established in the literature are the large gaps in access, achievement, and degree completion between traditional full-time, four-year undergraduate students and students who take the nontraditional pathway to postsecondary education (Perna, 2006a).
The characteristics of traditional students are: within the upper half of the family income distribution; having parents with baccalaureate degrees or above; attending more selective four-year institutions full-time immediately after leaving high school; and usually graduating within six years at relatively high rates (Baum, Ma, & Payea, 2010; Cabrera, Burkum, & LaNasa, 2003). The characteristics of nontraditional students are: both White and a high percentage of underrepresented students-of-color; within the lower half of the family income distribution; first generation college students; attending open access public or proprietary two-year and less-selective four-year institutions often part-time and several years after leaving high school; and experiencing long time to degree completion, or not completing at all (Baum, Ma, & Payea, 2010; Horn, 1996). If, as prominent politicians, scholars, and educational foundations argue, national and individual stability depends on increases in postsecondary credentials, then it is precisely the non-traditional majority of students in the U. that require the attention and sustained support to achieve those valuable credentials (Sponsler, Kienzl, & Wesaw, 2010).
This study examined the transfer college choice considerations of a subset of the nontraditional student group, specifically, high-achieving (i.5 grade point average and above) lower-income (Pell Grant-eligible) community college students seeking a baccalaureate degree. This particular subset of students is even less visible in the research 3 literature than the larger group of all community college students, despite the promise of achievement they represent. Two studies have shown a significant percentage of high- achieving, lower-income high school students who are effectively excluded from continuing their education because of social, financial, and institutional barriers to access (Hoxby & Avery, 2012; Wyner, Bridgeland, & Diiulio, 2007). For the purposes of this study, an analogous and relevant question that these reports only minimally address is whether high-achieving lower-income community college students seeking a baccalaureate experience the same sets of barriers to access as high-achieving lower- income high school students when making their college choices for transfer.
These students – who are capable of academically succeeding at the nation’s best colleges – are often excluded from institutions that act as gateways to power, prestige, and wealth, largely due to institutional and societal constructs that impede their choices and opportunity (Bowen & Bok, 1998; Dowd, 2007; Dowd, Cheslock, & Melguizo, 2008). Furthermore, many of these high-achieving students experience a phenomenon labeled by Bowen, Chingos and McPherson (2009) as “undermatching” wherein, for similar reasons outlined above, high-achieving students either matriculate at two-year or non-selective colleges, or do not matriculate at all. The impact of undermatching is felt at both the personal and societal level. Because graduation rates have been shown to be a function not only of prior academic achievement but also of the level of selectivity at each institution, high-achieving students may experience either delayed time to graduation or not graduate at all if choosing a less selective college (Bowen et al.
Secondly, when the proportion of jobs available is increasingly tied to some level of college completion, further erosion of absolute college completion numbers, especially by those 4 most capable, inhibits the long-term global competitiveness and economic health of the nation (Bowen et al.