Real and imagined barriers to college entry: Perceptions of cost

@article{citeulike:1257777, abstract = {Patterns of postsecondary attendance in the United States continue to be stratified by socioeconomic background and race/ethnicity. We suggest that inequalities in knowledge of the costs of going to college contribute to persistent patterns of stratification. We hypothesize that disadvantaged parents who believe their child will attend college are less certain of the costs of college attendance than more advantaged parents. As a result, they are less able or willing to provide an estimate of the costs of college attendance, more likely to over-estimate those costs if they do provide an estimate, and more likely to make larger errors in estimation than comparable middle-class or white parents. Using nationally representative data, we find mixed support for these hypotheses. Socioeconomically disadvantaged parents and minority parents are less likely to provide estimates of college tuition and, when they provide estimates, tend to make larger errors. On average, though, parents provide upwardly biased estimates of cost that are uniform across race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We discuss implications of these findings for sociological theory and for inequality in postsecondary education.}, author = {Grodsky, Eric and Jones, Melanie T. }, citeulike-article-id = {1257777}, journal = {Social Science Research}, keywords = {academia, admissions, class}, month = {June}, number = {2}, pages = {745--766}, posted-at = {2007-04-28 13:49:12}, priority = {2}, title = {Real and imagined barriers to college entry: Perceptions of cost}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WX8-4KBVV4P-1/2/9e2ec3eb4b0ca930bd9166da4c9674b0}, volume = {36}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1257777 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1257777 TI - Real and imagined barriers to college entry: Perceptions of cost JF - Social Science Research VL - 36 IS - 2 SP - 745 EP - 766 N2 - Patterns of postsecondary attendance in the United States continue to be stratified by socioeconomic background and race/ethnicity. We suggest that inequalities in knowledge of the costs of going to college contribute to persistent patterns of stratification. We hypothesize that disadvantaged parents who believe their child will attend college are less certain of the costs of college attendance than more advantaged parents. As a result, they are less able or willing to provide an estimate of the costs of college attendance, more likely to over-estimate those costs if they do provide an estimate, and more likely to make larger errors in estimation than comparable middle-class or white parents. Using nationally representative data, we find mixed support for these hypotheses. Socioeconomically disadvantaged parents and minority parents are less likely to provide estimates of college tuition and, when they provide estimates, tend to make larger errors. On average, though, parents provide upwardly biased estimates of cost that are uniform across race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. We discuss implications of these findings for sociological theory and for inequality in postsecondary education. KW - academia KW - admissions KW - class AU - Grodsky, Eric AU - Jones, Melanie PY - 2007/06// UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WX8-4KBVV4P-1/2/9e2ec3eb4b0ca930bd9166da4c9674b0 ER -