For decades, higher education institutions and state scholarship programs have been stepping up their efforts to shrink financial barriers to enrollment for lower-income students, Inside Higher Ed reports. And while those efforts have helped bring more low-income students and students of color to campuses, they often stop short of providing enrolled low-income students with the support they need to thrive, Anthony Abraham Jack, author, inaugural faculty director of the Boston University Newbury Center, and Boston University associate professor of higher education leadership, tells WBUR. His new book, Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price (2024), explores the difficulties low-income college students experience and the inequities that persist between low-income students and their wealthier peers.
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“It’s one thing to admit a diverse class. It’s a whole other thing to support the students who you are admitting,” Jack says. “We have admitted students, but we haven’t changed our policies.”
Jack points to obstacles such as basic needs insecurity, difficulties in balancing familial responsibilities with academic expectations, and working jobs that are unpaid and undervalued. He says much of his new book focuses on disparities between the types of jobs low-income students acquire and the opportunities wealthier students receive.
Students from a variety of economic backgrounds hold down jobs to pay for college expenses, but low-income students are negatively impacted by a “segregated labor market on campus…that lets class and inequality reign,” Jack tells WBUR.
Related: Unmet financial need a major barrier to higher education for low-income students, students of color >
Propelled forward or pulled home?
Middle-class students are more likely to apply for career-building research and teaching assistant jobs or unpaid internships that they learn about during their professors’ office hours, while lower-income students may take on manual and unpaid labor on behalf of their families, which tends to be invisible or undervalued on their resumes, he says. This inequity is even more pronounced during planned and unexpected campus closures, such as spring break or the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic-induced disruptions to higher education, which sent many college students home and moved classes online. Some students were still able to further their career development with the financial support of their families, while others returned to communities disproportionately affected by the pandemic or racial unrest after George Floyd’s murder.
“During summer breaks, gap years, and even historic moments like COVID, privileged students focused on maximizing present opportunities for future gains. They continued their march toward a career even as many delayed graduation,” Jack writes in Class Dismissed excerpts published by Teen Vogue. “Low-income students, equally interested in curating that same future or at least one free from insecurity, were often pulled by current concerns—namely, the everyday needs of home—in directions that made such internships impossible.”
Making opportunities, experiences more visible
To close these gaps, Jack suggests universities take steps to reduce obstacles to college success for low-income students, from opening their dining halls during spring break so students have access to food, to requiring all paid university-appointed research assistantships to be posted publicly—a strategy adopted, for instance, at the University of Nebraska—Jack tells WBUR.
These efforts allow students from all economic backgrounds to access quality jobs that not only pay a wage but also connect students to positions that lead to letters of recommendations and job recruitment. Schools and businesses should also work to recognize the value of low-income students’ unpaid labor, even if those roles are not on traditional career pathways.
“To truly promote diversity and lower barriers to entry…graduate and professional schools as well as businesses could add a section [of their applications] that asks students to share—not explain—why their list of extracurriculars, jobs, shadowing opportunities, and internships might not be as extensive as their peers,” Jack writes. “They could provide space for students to share skills and experiences that they bring to the position that might not show up on their resume.”
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