We See You: How Recognition of Low-Income, First-Generation Students is Institutionalized in Two Universities

Abstract

American colleges and universities make great promises of economic and social mobility but consistently fail to deliver on them, leaving thousands of low-income, first-generation (LIFG) students in debt and without a degree. For decades, unequal graduation rates along social class lines have been conceptualized and empirically examined as a largely individual phenomenon, resulting in the view that the disproportionate number of LIFG students dropping out of college is due to their inadequate preparation, difficult life circumstances, or failed integration into the campus community. Scholars have begun to challenge this view, illustrating how categorical distinctions and status hierarchies are used to inequitably allocate resources and respect on college campuses, systematically disadvantaging LIFG students. However, we have yet to see how the inverse of these practices can be employed to produce more equitable outcomes. In this ethnographic study, I examine the cultural processes and organizational practices that promote equity on college campuses by centering a critical, but understudied group of institutions: non-elite universities that serve large numbers of LIFG students and graduate them at significantly higher rates than the national average. I explore what practices, if any, are common at the individual and organizational levels of two “LIFG Success Institutions” and how these universities sustain an equity-orientation amid field-level forces that disincentivize this commitment. To this end, I spent a year embedded in one small private and one large public “LIFG Success Institution” observing, interviewing, and participating in campus life both before and after the COVID-19 outbreak. In my findings, I demonstrate that actors at West State and Mission (both pseudonyms) intentionally construct LIFG students as a valuable student group and employ similar individual and organizational practices to redirect tangible and intangible resources their way. However, this prioritization comes into conflict with economic and political forces in the field which pressure both universities to adopt practices that also undermine their support of LIFG students. I argue that although university actors can foster local organizational environments that center LIFG students and enable their success, these institutions occupy a precarious position in our highly stratified, prestige driven field of higher education.