Social Class Supports: Programs and Practices to Serve and Sustain Poor and Working-Class Students through Higher Education

Historically, higher education was designed for a narrow pool of privileged students. Despite national, state and institutional policies developed over time to improve access, higher education has only lately begun to address how its unexamined assumptions, practices and climate create barriers for poor and working class populations and lead to significant disparities in degree completion across social classes.

The data shows that higher education substantially fails to provide poor and work...