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Crossing the finish line? A review of college completion inequality in the United States by race and class
Author(s) -
Jeffrey Wesley
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12787
Subject(s) - graduation (instrument) , status attainment , race (biology) , bachelor , educational attainment , inequality , sociology , critical race theory , higher education , human capital theory , class (philosophy) , demographic economics , perspective (graphical) , human capital , categorical variable , educational inequality , discipline , political science , gender studies , economic growth , social science , economics , demography , law , socioeconomic status , population , mathematics , artificial intelligence , mathematical analysis , computer science , geometry , machine learning
Although most students graduate from high school and enroll in college the following fall, rates of entry into higher education and completion of a bachelor's degree continue to be stratified by race and class. Because of the potential returns that accrue to individuals and society overall when students complete their 4‐year degree, these disparate trends should motivate more policy‐relevant research in this area. In this review, I show how a longitudinal perspective of the path to a BA degree helps to reconcile competing theories of college completion by race and class across disciplinary boundaries. Both human capital theory and status attainment theory largely examine college completion as the long‐term process of BA attainment, although they differ in their focal stages and mechanisms. In contrast, the theory of categorical inequality, as applied in this review, focuses on the years in higher education and describes the ways in which colleges and universities as organizations create, legitimate, and reinforce categorical distinctions in postsecondary schooling and how these processes independently shape college completion inequality. As public interest grows in holding colleges accountable for their graduation rates, more research is needed on how the formal and informal organizational policies and practices of colleges produce inequality.