{"id":6786,"date":"2018-04-19T08:00:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T13:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/?p=6786"},"modified":"2018-04-17T19:47:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T00:47:00","slug":"wealthy-parents-reproduce-college-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2018\/04\/19\/wealthy-parents-reproduce-college-success\/","title":{"rendered":"How Wealthy Parents Reproduce College Success"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Travis Johnson, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parents of all backgrounds want their children to receive the best education possible, but what sets wealthy \u201chelicopter parents\u201d apart is that they have the resources to ensure it happens. A recent<\/span>\u00a0article<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in The Washington Post\u00a0<\/em>describes the role of \u201ccollege concierges\u201d — affluent parents that meticulously map out important college opportunities for their child — in widening the gap between their own children and children from working-class families, whose parents may not know how to guide their child through the college process.<\/span><\/p>\n

The article draws from a <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> by social scientists <\/span>Laura Hamilton<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0Josipa Roksa<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>Kelly Nielsen<\/span><\/a> about the role parents play in college students’ lives. The authors find that female students from wealthy families graduate at a rate of 75 percent, while their counterparts from low-income families only graduate at a rate of 40 percent. To explain this discrepancy, the authors give an example of two students interested in dentistry — one from a wealthy family accepted into her top-choice dental school, and the other from a poorer family who was not admitted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[The] one from an affluent family\u2026had reviewed applications years earlier and knew what she needed to do to get in\u2026. [The other student’s] parents didn\u2019t know what was required — such as job shadowing — nor did they realize her slipping grades would disqualify her from getting admitted. She ended up as a dental assistant making $11 an hour, a job that\u00a0didn\u2019t even require a bachelor\u2019s degree.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Instead of criticizing affluent parents’ behavior, the article’s author suggests we should direct our energy towards providing guidance to students without it, in order to close success gaps like the one illustrated in this study.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cSimply providing more aid or more help in getting admitted isn\u2019t enough\u2026. Schools also need to put in place programs — and pay for them — that help middle- and lower-income students find the right mentors, get spots in\u00a0study-abroad\u00a0programs and internships, and navigate the often confusing and tricky journey to graduation.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parents of all backgrounds want their children to receive the best education possible, but what sets wealthy \u201chelicopter parents\u201d apart is that they have the resources to ensure it happens. A recent\u00a0article\u00a0in The Washington Post\u00a0describes the role of \u201ccollege concierges\u201d — affluent parents that meticulously map out important college opportunities for their child — in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2020,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13,85],"tags":[29,43,20427,39112,104080,34,70,78,39110,4374,8962,38830,19021],"class_list":["post-6786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-inequality","category-politics","tag-class","tag-college","tag-concerted-cultivation","tag-culture","tag-economic-class","tag-education","tag-family","tag-higher-education","tag-inequality","tag-parenting","tag-parents","tag-socioeconomic-class","tag-socioeconomic-status"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2020"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6798,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions\/6798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}