Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality

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Overview

Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiancé. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth it," Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the ...

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Overview

Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiancé. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth it," Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher education. A powerful exposé of unmet obligations and misplaced priorities, it explains in vivid detail why so many leave college with so little to show for it.

Drawing on findings from a five-year interview study, Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton bring us to the campus of "MU," a flagship Midwestern public university, where we follow a group of women drawn into a culture of status seeking and sororities. Mapping different pathways available to MU students, the authors demonstrate that the most well-resourced and seductive route is a "party pathway" anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by the administration. This pathway exerts influence over the academic and social experiences of all students, and while it benefits the affluent and well-connected, Armstrong and Hamilton make clear how it seriously disadvantages the majority.

Eye-opening and provocative, Paying for the Party reveals how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those whom universities enroll.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
Though this book's data came from a study of women and sexuality at college, what emerged was a study of social and academic infrastructure at an unidentified Midwestern university. University of Michigan sociologist Armstrong and University of California-Merced sociologist Hamilton spent over five years tracking the lives of female students from one floor of a university dorm. The preface describes the authors' experiences of "studying up"—learning about a more elite population—which compelled Armstrong to purchase new clothes on her way to interviews and Hamilton to grow out her hair. Their study reveals the effects of differing parental, social, and financial standing among students. A particular focus of sample group is the "party pathway," with an entire chapter is dedicated to the hierarchy associated with wealth and social interactions as seen through this activity. Armstrong and Hamilton pepper the book with student interviews, and ultimately suggest substantial changes to university structure for creating an egalitarian, merit-based environment. The extensive research and approachable writing style make this book useful to any audience interested in learning more about social differences within the education system. (Apr.)
Michèle Lamont
In this bold book, Armstrong and Hamilton capture the strikingly different pathways women undergraduates can take through public universities--'party,' 'professional,' or 'mobility'--and show how the dominant campus culture indulges the upper-middle class and limits the prospect of the upwardly mobile. The authors show the complex connections between parental resources, sociability, educational outcome, post-graduation lives, and the importance of the right brand of shoes. This book illuminates the realities of the college experience today, when an adult life without crushing debt is fast becoming the privilege of the few.
Mitchell Stevens
Paying for the Party is very provocative and should be read by every dean of students on every residential campus. At a time when women are making rapid progress in educational attainment compared to men, Armstrong and Hamilton show how young women's academics, social lives, and labor-market opportunities get aligned in college--and what happens when they do not.
Steven Brint
By focusing on the lives of young women who spent freshman year living on a 'party floor,' Armstrong and Hamilton help us understand critical issues facing American higher education, including the out-sized role of sororities and fraternities and how the values of affluent students coincide with the interests of universities to empower the 'party pathway.' Richly observed and vividly narrated, this is an important ethnography of American campus life.
Richard Arum
With astute observations and insights, Paying for the Party sheds new light on the lived experiences of contemporary students. It is a very important piece of scholarship that will inform the national discourse on the current state of U.S. higher education.
Booklist - Bryce Christensen
In typical frat parties, Armstrong and Hamilton see much that is wrong with college education today. Such parties allow daughters of the affluent to flaunt their social advantages while exposing the vulnerabilities of female students from less-privileged backgrounds. Unfortunately, the authors find such parties well established in the 'party pathway' through the university. Focusing on female students, the authors find from campus observations and interviews ample evidence that four years on the party pathway will open doors of power for the elite while stranding the wannabes with mountains of student-loan debt and few employment options for paying off that debt...A provocative exposé of socially polarizing trends in higher education--certain to spark debate.
Kirkus Reviews
How a large Midwestern state university (unnamed in this longitudinal study) does little to help young women move upward or outward from their working- and middle-class backgrounds. Armstrong (Sociology and Organizational Studies/Univ. of Michigan) and Hamilton (Univ. of California, Merced) report the results of their five-year study of a group of young women who began in the same freshman dorm but ended up in very different situations. The constraints of social and economic class remained formidable, and moving into the professional class seemed virtually impossible, especially for those women who followed what the authors call "the party pathway." Women from more privileged backgrounds survived their partying through school due to their more substantial support systems at home. We also see how difficult the college adjustment was for less talented students and for women from modest backgrounds and small towns. The authors conducted five annual interviews with their cohort of about 50 students (not all sat for all five interviews). The text looks and reads like the academic study that it is (many charts, some jargon, a conventional organization), but the conclusions are sobering, if not depressing. Armstrong and Hamilton assail the university itself for a number of failures, including an ineffectual system of student advising; a plethora of meaningless majors and courses designed to attract full-paying students, many of whom have no intention of actually pursuing such a career; and its continuing support for the fraternity/sorority system, which the authors contend undermines the very academic mission of the university. Athletics take some major blame, as well. The authors also discovered that some of the women who transferred to regional campuses performed better and were happier. The prose is sometimes sluggish and the recommendations perhaps quixotic, but the portrait of the university features stark lines and alarming colors.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780674049574
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press
  • Publication date: 4/8/2013
  • Pages: 344
  • Sales rank: 158,655
  • Product dimensions: 6.50 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Elizabeth A. Armstrong is Associate Professor of Sociology and Organizational Studies at University of Michigan.

Laura T. Hamilton is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Merced.

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