Insecurity is at the heart of contemporary higher education but colleges and universities can become more equitable. Blake Silver sets out how, in this extract from his ethnographic analysis, Degrees of Risk
The insecurity that saturates higher education today is a problem – one that needs to be addressed. The previous chapters depict the hardship confronted by many students when their college journeys are unpredictable and uncertain. This insecurity undermines their ability to meet goals and prepare for the future. It amplifies inequalities among students and teaches them problematic lessons about the world. To deal with these issues, higher education leaders – faculty, staff, administrators, and policymakers alike – must work against insecurity, building postsecondary institutions that provide the stability students need to succeed in college.
The findings presented in the previous chapter offered a framework for distinguishing between two types of institutional arrangements: insecurity amplifiers and security boosters. To become more equitable, colleges and universities must revise policies and practices in order to remove insecurity amplifiers. These normative institutional arrangements benefit students who are comfortable navigating complex bureaucracies and taking risks while undermining those who are not, thereby exacerbating inequality between students with different capacities for dealing with uncertainty. This book documents four main insecurity amplifiers in the form of (1) pervasive choice and flexbility, (2) invisible student support services, (3) reactive support practices, and (4) decentralized organization of services.
Though these arrangements are taken for granted at many institutions, they are not the only options available. How could colleges and universities move past them to offer something different? I argue that such change would require that universities replace each of the insecurity amplifiers outlined above with security boosters, such as (1) structured guidance, (2) visible student support, (3) proactive practices, and (4) integrated services. Here I propose several strategies for making this type of progress serve a broader group of students, not customers.
Leaders must confront institutional isomorphism, or the tendency for organizations to become increasingly similar over time
The affluent out of state student cannot remain the primary focus of public universities. Higher education leaders must recognize a broader range of student experiences, backgrounds, and resources. This requires responding to the needs of a much more diverse student population. As the previous chapters show, such change involves working against powerful forces, both internal and external to the university. For instance, leaders must confront institutional isomorphism, or the tendency for organizations to become increasingly similar over time. [1] When schools like CU [Commonwealth University*] seek to mimic other colleges and universities – especially elite ones – they adopt policies and practices that fail to recognize the unique characteristics and needs of their own students.[2]
It’s not difficult to understand why so many administrators feel obliged to focus their attention on affluent students and treat them like customers. They rely on the tuition payments made by wealthy families in order to stay afloat.[3]
In other words, as the first chapter of this book explained, the fiscal pressures institutions encounter drive tendencies to design universities for a particular kind of affluent student. It is crucial that federal and state policymakers recognize the problems with this dynamic and fund higher education. Without ample funding, it will remain difficult for institutions to adequately serve students, especially those who are LIFGWC [low-income, first-generation, working-class] and those who are marginalized on the basis of race, gender, and other sociodemographic characteristics. Fortunately, scholars have offered a range of promising strategies for improving the financial situations of public postsecondary institutions.[4]
Higher education leaders need to reconsider the ways they frame what a successful college experience looks like
Increased funding is essential. But higher education leaders cannot wait for a change in government appropriations to begin their efforts to serve a more diverse group of students. With the resources currently at their disposal, colleges and universities need to prioritize robust student support services – academic advising, tutoring, mental health counseling, and other resources designed to help students navigate the challenges of college life. Additionally, higher education leaders need to reconsider the ways they frame what a successful college experience looks like. In this book we saw how the types of self-actualization that appealed to socioeconomically advantaged students did not usually seem feasible or safe to their less advantaged peers.[5] When universities extol the virtues of engagement beyond the classroom in the form of extracurricular activities or unpaid internships, for example, they prop up the types of involvement that are most accessible to the affluent, leaving unacknowledged the commitments – to academic priorities, skill development, paid employment, and family – that are central to the lives of many LIFGWC students.
This was especially clear when juxtaposing the experiences of minimizers and maximizers. For instance, whereas Rachel (a maximizer) scooped up “a wealth of opportunities” to be part of clubs, internships, and community ser vice, minimizers were unnerved by CU’s emphasis on co-curricular and extra-curricular engagement. The way the university framed these opportunities as “achievement,” without making them accessible to a broad range of students, proved to be especially frustrating.[6] Near the end of her interview, Hannah (a minimizer) recalled filling out a university survey that inquired about her “biggest accomplishment at CU.” She suspected that the question was inquiring about experiences such as internships, study abroad, campus leadership, and other extracurricular engagement. The frustration in her voice was obvious as she recalled, “I pretty much said, the fact that I did the damn thing. The fact that I came here and got a degree was my biggest accomplishment, because that’s all that I really came to college for was to get a degree and gain skills.” Even as she completed the final credits for her degree, Hannah continued to feel like her dedication to making academic progress while working full-time was not recognized or appreciated at CU.[7]
Moreover, by allowing uncertainty to run rampant and praising open ended self-discovery, universities cater most directly to dispositions that this book shows are found primarily among affluent White men. Recall, for instance, how Brian “felt unsatisfied with things that were certain” and appreciated the university’s emphasis on unstructured opportunities for personal growth. While he and other socioeconomically advantaged White men embraced insecurity, most of their peers found it to be daunting. This included the socioeconomically advantaged maximizers who experienced marginalization on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration histories, religion, and ability. As Kaylin (a maximizer) described in chapter 4, for these students, open-ended trajectories through higher education seemed impractical. Instead, she tried to confront the “vulnerability” she felt as a Muslim woman from an immigrant family and “channel it to something else” by becoming engaged in myriad outlets to avoid putting “all your eggs in one basket.” These findings align with other research showing that universities often assume a White student body and create environments that advantage men even when demographic change in higher education means that the majority of students on many campuses are students of color and women.[8]
Universities should not simply replace one imagined customer with another
Finally, universities should not simply replace one imagined customer with another. Instead, institutions need to stop treating students as consumers altogether. Students are many things. They are learners; they are scholars and researchers; they are family members and neighbors; they are professionals in training; and they are certainly important members of the university community. But they are not customers.
Nonetheless, so many social, economic, and political changes in the US have made them feel like consumers in educational settings, and universities have contributed to this sense in a variety of ways.[9]
* Commonwealth University is the name the author gives to the public institution where he conducted more than a hundred ethnographic interviews in 2020-2021.
Endnotes
[2] Notably, many of the policies and practices that become widespread because of institutional isomorphism fail to adequately serve even those students enrolled at highly resourced institutions (see, e.g., Armstrong and Hamilton 2013).
[4] See, for instance, Eaton (2022), Hamilton and Nielsen (2021), and Goldrick-Rab (2016).
[5] See also Mullen (2010).
[6] To say that an emphasis on extracurricular and cocurricular engagement was problematic is not to say that these forms of engagement aren’t valuable. There is a great deal of evidence to demonstrate the positive impact of such engagement (Mayhew et al. 2016; Pascarella and Terenzini 2005). The issue is that universities currently tout extracurricular and cocurricular involvement without making them accessible to all students.
[7] Even in those rare moments when universities think beyond the desires of affluent students to consider the experiences of LIFGWC students, they often rely on problematic perspectives. For instance, CU’s website sometimes included praise for these students’ “grit” or “resilience” without acknowledging that the need for these traits was sometimes prompted by the institution’s inadequate support.
[8] See, for instance, Buchmann and DiPrete (2006); DiPrete and Buchmann (2013); Nielsen and Hamilton (2022). With regard to assuming a White student body, for example, Nielsen and Hamilton (2022, 24) explain how “institutional whiteness,” which can be observed when “demography, policies, and practices that assume a white ‘typical’ student, blocks the potential for democratic higher education.”
Reprinted with permission from Degrees of Risk by Blake Silver, published by the University of Chicago Press. © 2024 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________ This post is opinion-based and does not reflect the views of the London School of Economics and Political Science or any of its constituent departments and divisions. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Main image: Khürt L Williams CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
