Document Tag: inequality

Unmarried Parents in College (2010)

Noting that access to higher education has expanded dramatically in the past several decades, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen focus on how unmarried parents fare once they enter college. Contrary to the expectation that access to college consistently promotes family stability and economic security, the authors argue that deficiencies in current policy lead college attendance to have adverse consequences for some families headed by unmarried parents.
Although rates of college attendance have increased substantially among unmarried parents, their college completion rates are low. One explanation is inadequate academic preparation. Another is financial constraints, which can force unmarried students to interrupt their studies or increase their work hours, both of which compromise the quality of their educational experiences and the outcomes for their children.
The authors point out that although many public programs offer support to unmarried parents attending college, the support is neither well coordinated nor easily accessed. Over the past three decades, loans have increasingly replaced grants as the most common form of federal and state financial aid. Confusion about what is available leads many low-income students to the two most “straightforward” sources of income—loans and work, both of which involve significant costs and can operate at cross-purposes with public forms of support. Too much work can lead to reductions in public benefits, and earnings do not always replace the lost income.
A growing body of experimental evidence shows that providing social, financial, and academic supports to vulnerable community college students can improve achievement and attainment. Contextualized learning programs, for example, have enabled participants not only to move on from basic skills to credit-bearing coursework, but also to complete credits, earn certificates, and make gains on basic skills tests. Another successful initiative provided low-performing students with special counseling services and a small stipend of $150 per semester when they used those services. And researchers are conducting experimental performance-based financial aid programs at community colleges to test their effectiveness. Goldrick-Rab and Sorensen conclude that more effective support could enable unmarried students to complete college degree and certificate programs.

Putting College First: How Social and Financial Capital Impact Labor Market Participation Among Low‐Income Undergraduates (2011)

Most undergraduates work despite evidence that working while in college is associated with lower
rates of degree completion. Prior research indicates that the propensity to work varies by both family
income and education, suggesting that both financial and social capital operate to reduce work and
preserve educational advantage. We test that hypothesis with a sample of 3,000 low‐income
Wisconsin undergraduates enrolled in the state’s 42 public two‐year and four‐year colleges and
universities. Leveraging an experiment that distributes financial aid via lottery, we identify effects of
financial capital on labor force participation that are comparable in magnitude to the positive benefits
of social capital obtained through parental education. Specifically, the allocation of additional financial
aid reduces the hours worked by low‐income students with high school‐educated parents to the point
that it nearly fully offsets the socioeconomic advantage (in terms of fewer hours worked) that accrues
to students from college‐educated families. Need‐based financial aid, it appears, may be an equalizer
that promises to reduce labor force participation and enhance college attainment.

Work-First or Work-Only: Welfare Reform, State Policy, and Access to Postsecondary Education (2003)

As a result of the 1996 welfare reform-Temporary Aid
to Needy Families (TANF)-the number of welfare
recipients enrolled in postsecondary education has
decreased dramatically.T he new welfare law also gives
states significant discretion to support and even promote
postsecondary education for low-income adults; consequently,
state policies regarding access vary widely. This
study uses qualitative data from three states to examine
the sources and consequences of state variation in access
to postsecondary education for disadvantaged individuals.
Our cross-state comparison shows that competing
ideas about welfare, work and the role of education in
the lives of welfare recipients help structure and shape
political debates, and policy outcomes, in the each of the
states. Ideas influenced policies via four key channels:
the state human service agency; advocacy organizations;
the persistence of the “work-first”id ea within implementationp
rocesses; and the power of policy “signals”to
drive state welfare reform

Higher Education in Wisconsin: A 21st Century Status Report (2010)

Wisconsin is at a crossroads. Even before the recent economic crisis, the state was lagging
behind our peers in Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa in population growth, per capita income,
and the share of the population with more than a high school education. Without a significant
investment in education, Wisconsin will continue to fall further behind not only our peers in the
Midwest, but the nation as a whole.

The Community College Effect Revisited: The Importance of Attending to Heterogeneity and Complex Counterfactuals (2012)

Community colleges are controversial educational institutions, often said to simultaneously expand college opportunities and diminish baccalaureate attainment. We assess the seemingly contradictory functions of community colleges by attending to effect heterogeneity and alternative counterfactual conditions. Using data on postsecondary outcomes of high school graduates of Chicago Public Schools, we find that enrolling at a community college penalizes more advantaged students who otherwise would have attended four-year colleges, particularly highly selective schools; however, these students represent a relatively small portion of the community college population, and these estimates are almost certainly biased. On the other hand, enrolling at a community college has a modest positive effect on bachelor’s degree completion for disadvantaged students who otherwise would not have attended college; these students represent the majority of community college-goers. We conclude that discussions among scholars, policymakers, and practitioners should move beyond considering the pros and cons of community college attendance for students in general to attending to the implications of community college attendance for targeted groups of students.