Springer Postsecondary Education for First-Generation and Low-Income Students in the Ivy League: Navigating Policy and Practice

This book examines how previously excluded high-achieving, low-income students are faring socially and academically at an Ivy League college in New England. In the past, research conducted on low-income students in elite schools focused mainly on the admissions process. As a result, there is a dearth of research on what happens to low-income students once they are admitted and attend classes. This book chronicles an ethnographic study of twenty low-income men and women in their senior year at Dartmouth College and follows up with them four and twelve years post-graduation. By helping to bring visibility and self-awareness to low-income students and expose class issues and struggles, the author hopes to encourage elite institutions to change their policies and practices to address the needs of these students.  Review   Review “America can only succeed as a strong economy and democracy if we provide opportunities based on talent to all, which includes access for the best low income students to the best of our universities.  Even when we do enroll those students, we often fail to see the hidden constraints on their ability to make the most out of the opportunity. With keen insight based on her own personal experiences as a student and as a leader at Dartmouth, Landers shows us how we can and must do better.” (Anthony W. Marx, President of the New York Public Library and former president of Amherst College, USA) “This book presents an engaging, wide-ranging discussion of the importance, function, and implications of class difference among students in America’s elite institutions. Told with grace, humor, generosity, and insight, these stories will interest not only those of us who have emerged from working class backgrounds but those who are mystified by how folks without financial and cultural privileges rise to attain them. Landers fills the gap in recent books on class by bringing absolutely contemporary perspectives to this ever-changing, always-important topic.” (Gina Barreca, author of Babes in Boyland: A Personal History of Coeducation in the Ivy League) Review   From the Back Cover This book examines how previously excluded high-achieving, low-income students are faring socially and academically at an Ivy League college in New England. In the past, research conducted on low-income students in elite schools focused mainly on the admissions process. As a result, there is a dearth of research on what happens to low-income students once they are admitted and attend classes. This book chronicles an ethnographic study of twenty low-income men and women in their senior year at Dartmouth College and follows up with them four and twelve years post-graduation. By helping to bring visibility and self-awareness to low-income students and expose class issues and struggles, the author hopes to encourage elite institutions to change their policies and practices to address the needs of these students.  About the Author Kerry H. Landers is Assistant Dean of Graduate Student Affairs in the School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, and Visiting Lecturer in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program at Dartmouth College, USA.