Running head: FINAL ASSIGNMENT #2: BOOK REVIEW 1

Final Assignment # 2 Book Review

Eli Heller

Seattle University
FINAL ASSIGNMENT #2: BOOK REVIEW 2

Abstract

The following book review identifies and critiques the arguments presented by researchers

Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton in their book, Paying for the Party: How College

Maintains Inequality. The length, method, strengths, and weaknesses of the study are all

discussed and analyzed.

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Final Assignment: Book Review

While large, public, state universities in the United States bear the responsibility of

educating the populations of their respective states, providing students who attend with strong

social networks, valuable knowledge and professional skills, only a small number of todays

college students graduate with skill sets necessary for steady employment and financial security.

As Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton argue in Paying for the Party: How College

Maintains Inequality, the degree to which students are successful, after graduation from a large,

public research university, depends almost entirely on class background.

Through a five-year qualitative study of 47 women living in an on-campus freshman

dormitory at a large, public research university in the Midwest (coded as Midwest University),

beginning at the start of their freshman years, Armstrong and Hamilton demonstrate the ways in

which class background dictates academic, social and professional success at the collegiate level

and beyond. While earning college degrees should increase students chances of finding

employment and financial stability, in the form of finding a job that requires a Bachelors degree

and being able to support oneself after graduation, the data presented in Paying for the Party

suggest that only affluent students were able to reproduce their class backgrounds, whether they

graduated with marketable skills or not. By highlighting three distinct pathways through the

university the party pathway, professional pathway, and mobility pathway and classifying the

women in the study as socialites, wannabees, strivers, achievers, or underachievers

based on their fit, or lack thereof, with one of these pathways, the authors outline how and why

only a select few students leave college with the resources needed for success, and how many

students ultimately do not get what they need out of a college education.
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Armstrong and Hamilton conducted this study in a dormitory with a reputation for being

a party dormmeaning that a particularly high percentage of students living there each year

joined sororities, in comparison to the smaller percentage of total students involved in Greek life

at the university. The young women living in the dorm were divided into socialites and

isolates based on their levels of social involvement on campus. At Midwest University

specifically, as the authors explain, the primary social scene is inextricably tied to participation in

Greek organizations, and the women in the study who joined sororities felt more connected to

campus life overall.

In regards to success, or lack thereof, on both the professional and party pathways,

Armstrong and Hamilton brilliantly attest to the relationship between class privilege and

geographic origin. While women from small, in-state towns were often the first in their families

to attend college, had little prior exposure to cultural diversity, and came from lower-middle

class or working class backgrounds, many of the affluent women in the study arrived at Midwest

University from large out-of-state cities such as Chicago or New York, were familiar with the

culture of higher education due to being raised by college-educated parents, and were thus able

to adjust to college life, particularly the party pathway, much more easily than their less

financially privileged peers. While women from sparsely populated rural areas were more

academically accomplished than many of their classmates in their respective towns and

considered their admission to Midwest University to be an outstanding feat, affluent women

from large cities did not consider themselves to be above average academically, and mostly took

college for granted. Armstrong and Hamilton (2010) articulate this phenomenon as

extraordinary young people from ordinary places, as opposed to somewhat ordinary women

from extraordinary privilege (p. 46). This difference in class privilege among the women in the
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study, in terms of geographic location specifically, also directly influenced their employment

prospects later on, as only women from affluent families were ultimately able to find jobs in

glamorous professions such as sports management, due to their parents networking ties in large,

cosmopolitan cities such as New York and Los Angeles, or had the flexibility to cross state lines

toward better job markets in their respective fields due to familial support.

Most of the lower class women studied, on the other hand, left Midwest University,

finding the professional training they sought and needed at regional university campuses closer

to home, which demonstrates how poorly Midwest University served their potential for social

mobility through earning a college degree. Armstrong and Hamilton point out, at the close of the

study, that Midwest Universitys failure to provide disadvantaged students with a chance at social

mobility and transferrable skills is tied to the larger conflict that public research universities,

particularly middle-tier research institutions like Midwest University, rely on out-of-state tuition

dollars and research activity, as the greatest source of revenue, and on research activity among

faculty, rather than student-centered approaches to teaching, as the greatest source of prestige (p.

241).

The researchers additionally do an excellent job of demonstrating how important social

involvement is to academic success and retention at the university level, and later, to

employability. For example, Taylor, a study participant on the professional pathway who came

from a privileged background, developed a social connection to campus by joining a sorority, yet

happened to join an organization known for housing studious women, maintained a strong

academic and extracurricular record, and was eventually accepted to dentistry school by the end

of the study. Whereas affluent students on the professional pathway had the class resources

necessary to boost their resumes with unpaid summer internships and immersive study abroad
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programs, students from disadvantaged backgrounds often lacked the time or parental support to

become socially involved in campus life, often due to demanding work schedules. Due to their

assignment to a party dorm, they also perceived the party scene to be the only solid way of

finding such a sense of social involvement at the university. Further, the authors point out that

women from the lower classes often lacked the preexisting social connections, often in the form

of older siblings, to the university that more affluent students had, and arrived knowing no one.

Overall, the most blatantly absent layer to Armstrong and Hamiltons argument is any

mention of how race intersects with class privilege, determines a students fit with a particular

pathway through the university, and affects retention rates, because the entire population the

researchers studied identified as white. This is yet another reason why geographical context is

essential in interpreting the findings of this study: at an equally large, yet more racially diverse

institution, such as any public research university on the west coast, membership in top sororities

might not be as tied to whiteness.

Second, while the researchers categorization of the women by pathway through the

university certainly highlights their varying their motivations for attending college, their

professional aspirations, and how well or poorly Midwest University serves students on each

pathway, there were several deviations from each pathway among the participants in the study,

and some deviations that would be common in any university setting that were not mentioned at

all. Several upper and upper-middle class women interviewed in the study, for example, entered

neither the party pathway nor the professional pathway, becoming floor isolates due to other

characteristics, such as Leahs coming out struggles, or Lindas aversion to drinking. In addition,

the rigid classification of the women in the study into categories based on pathway fails to

recognize the varied fates of students who enter the university setting as undecided or
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undeclared, who may come from any class background, and how well the professional and

mobility pathways accommodated this population of students. While the researchers do mention

motivation issues and poor fit between interests, abilities and major as a common trait among

the underachievers, their argument lacks any discussion of the experiences of students who

enter the university with high levels of motivation for academic success, yet without fully-

formed academic or career aspirations (p. 183). These students could end up in what the

researchers describe as easy majors, regardless of their class backgrounds. Further, the

discussion of the professional pathway highlights undergraduate majors such as pre-dentistry and

accounting, yet does not acknowledge any achievable professional or academic aspirations in the

humanities or social sciences, or the experiences of any students who realized their professional

goals after graduation, finding solid employment in fields they did not study at the undergraduate

level.

Still, the findings of this study are highly informative for the future of student affairs

practice because they demonstrate the importance of integrating residential life and academic

advising. Such a combination of these two areas, in the form of a living learning community, for

example, could steer more students toward the professional pathway, regardless of their

strengths, challenges, or ever-changing professional goals. Second, this study suggests the

importance of integrating academic and career advising, to ensure that students engage with

career exploration and professional goal formation, guide students through the job application or

recruitment process, and help them ultimately have a smooth transition out of the university

setting. Practices such as intrusive advising, in which students are required to meet with an

academic advisor before registering for another term at the university, would also ensure that

academic advisors meet students where they are and provide the appropriate support and
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guidance. Finally, only one study participant, lower-middle class Valerie, earned a scholarship

specifically for financially disadvantaged students. However, as the researchers describe, part of

Valeries success was due to entering college already knowing such programs existed, which in

turn was due to having a college-educated parent. If any of the working class women had been

identified and educated by staff about such programs during their time at Midwest University,

they may have remained, graduated and found employment thereafter.

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References

Armstrong, E. A., & Hamilton, L. R. (2013). Paying for the Party: How College Maintains

Inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.