This article, based on work funded by the American Association of University Women, examines how personal and environmental factors shape non-college attendees’ decisions to forgo college directly after high school. Group interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of 48 racially diverse recent high school graduates (27 men and 21 women) who had not attended any 2-year or 4-year college since completing high school. All graduated from public high schools in Los Angeles, California, and were between 18 and 21 years of age at the time that were interviewed. Findings highlight study participants’ current pursuits, their perspectives on college, the factors that influenced their post-high school life decisions (particularly home and school environments), and their reflections on whether they would do anything differently given the opportunity to turn back time. Considered within Persell's multidimensional framework, the findings lend support to the combined effects of societal, institutional, interactional, and intrapsychic variables in producing differential educational outcomes and post-high school life paths. Especially noteworthy is the transcendent effect across race, gender, and socioeconomic status of efficacy beliefs in shaping educational choices.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AlexanderK. L., and EcklandB. K. (1974). Sex differences in the educational attainment process. American Sociological Review, 39, 668—682.
2.
AstinA. W. (1993). What matters in college?San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
3.
AttanasiL. C. (1989). Getting in: Mexican Americans’ perceptions of university attendance and the implications for freshman year persistence. Journal of Higher Education, 60, 247—277.
4.
BanduraA. (1995). Self-efficacy in changing societies. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
5.
BarthP., HaycockK., HuangS., and RichardsonA. (2000). Youth at the crossroads: Facing high school and beyond (Report prepared for the National Commission on the High School Senior Year). Washington, DC: Education Trust.
6.
BrownsteinA. (2000). Admissions officers weigh a heretical idea: Affirmative action for men. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved December 27, 2005, from http://chronicle.com/free/2000/10/2000100904n.htm
7.
CabreraA. F., and La NasaS. M. (2000). Understanding the college choice process. In CabreraA.F., and La NasaS.M. (Eds.), New directions for institutional research: Understanding the college choice of disadvantaged students, (No. 107, pp. 5–22). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
8.
CabreraA. F., and La NasaS. M. (2001). On the path to college: Three critical tasks facing America's disadvantaged youth. Research in Higher Education, 42, 119—150.
9.
California Association of School Counselors. (2000). School counseling fact sheet. Retrieved June 14, 2003, from http://www.schoolcounselor-ca.org
10.
ChoyS., HornL., and ChenX. (2000). Transition to college: What helps at-risk students and students whose parents did not attend college. In CabreraA.F., and La NasaS.M. (Eds.), New directions for institutional research: Understanding the college choice of disadvantaged students, (No. 107, pp. 45–63). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
11.
CohnE., and HughesW. W. (1994). A benefit-cost analysis of investment in college education in the United States: 1969–1985. Economics Education Review, 13, 109—123.
HavemanR. H., and WolfeB. L. (1984). Schooling and economic well-being: The role of non-market effects. The Journal of Human Resources, 19, 377—404.
14.
HornL., and ChenX. (1999). Toward resiliency: At-risk students who make it to college. Advances in Education Research, 4, 31—58.
15.
HosslerD., BraxtonJ., and CoopersmithG. (1989). Understanding student college choice. In and and SmartJ.C. (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 231—288). New York: Agathon.
16.
HosslerD., SchmidtJ., and VesperN. (1999). Going to college: How social, economic, and education factors influence the decisions students make. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
17.
ImmerwahrJ., and FolenoT. (2000). Great expectations: How the public and parents–White, African American and Hispanic–view higher education (Report No. NCPPHE-00-2). Stanford, CA: National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. (ED 444 405).
18.
Johnson (1978). A theory of job shopping. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 92, 261—278.
19.
KingJ. (1996). The decision to go to college: Attitudes and experiences associated with college attendance among low-income students. Washington, DC: The College Board.
20.
KingJ. (2000). Gender equity in higher education: Are male students at a disadvantage?Washington, DC: American Council on Education Center for Policy Analysis.
21.
KlermanJ. A., and KarolyL. A. (1994). Young men and the transition to stable employment. Monthly Labor Review, 117(8), 31—48.
22.
LeeV., and EkstromR. (1987). Student access to guidance counseling in high school. American Education Research Journal, 24, 287—310.
23.
LevineA., and NidifferJ. (1996). Beating the odds: How the poor get to college. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
24.
LindholmJ. A., AstinH. S., ChoiJ. Y., and Gutierrez-ZamanoE. (2002). The educational paths of recent high school graduates: College, work, and future plans. Unpublished manuscript, University of California, Los Angeles.
25.
LondonH. B. (1989). Breaking away: A study of first-generation college students and their families. American Journal of Education, 97, 144—170.
26.
LondonH. B. (1992). Transformations: Cultural challenges faced by first-generation students. In ZwerlingL.S., and LondonH.B. (Eds.), First-generation students: Confronting the cultural issues (pp. 5—11). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
27.
ManskiC. F., and WiseD. A. (1983). College choice in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
28.
MaxwellJ. A. (1996). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
MayerD. (1999). Do early educational awareness programs increase the chances of eighth graders reaching higher education?Advances in Education Research, 4, 31—58.
30.
McDonoughP. (1997). Choosing colleges: How schools and social class structure opportunity. Albany: State University of New York Press.
31.
McDonoughP. (1998). Structuring college opportunities: A cross-case analysis of organizational cultures, climates, and habiti. In TorresC., and MitchellT. (Eds.), Sociology of education: emerging perspectives (pp. 181—210). Albany: State University of New York Press.
32.
McDonoughP., AntonioA., WalpoleM. B., and PerezL. (1998). College rankings: Democratized knowledge for whom?Research in Higher Education, 39, 513—533.
33.
MehanH., HubbardL., VillanuevaI., and LintzA. (1996). Parents’ contributions to untracked students’ careers. In MehanH., VillanuevaI., HubbardL., and LintzA. (Eds.), Constructing school success: The consequences of untracking low-achieving students (pp. 157—183). New York: Cambridge University Press.
34.
MilesM. S., and HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
35.
MortensonT. G. (1999). Where are the boys? The growing gender gap in higher education. College Board Review, 188, 8—17.
36.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2000). Dropout rates in the United States 1998. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
37.
NolfiG. J., FullerW. C., CorazziniA. J., EpsteinW. H., FreemanR. B., and Manski (1986). Experiences of recent high school graduates: The transition to work or postsecondary education. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.
38.
OstermanP., and IannozziM. (1993). Youth apprenticeships and school-to-work transition: Current knowledge and legislative strategy. Philadelphia: National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce.
39.
PascarellaE. T., and TerenziniP. T. (1991). How college affects students. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
40.
PerezL. X. (1999). In search of the road to an open college door: The interface of individual, structural, and cultural constructs in Latino parents’ efforts to support their children in planning for college. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
41.
PersellC. H. (1977). Education and inequality: A theoretical and empirical analysis. New York: Free Press.
42.
SadovnikA. R., CooksonP. W., and SemelS. F. (1994). Exploring education: An introduction to the foundations of education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
43.
SewellW. H., and ShahV. P. (1967). Socioeconomic status intelligence and the attainment of higher education. Sociology of Education, 40, 1—23.
44.
SewellW. H., and ShahV. P. (1968). Parents’ and children's educational aspirations and achievements. American Sociological Review, 33, 191—209.
45.
SmithM. H., BeaulieuL. J., and SeraphineA. (1995). Social capital, place of residence, and college attendance. Rural Sociology, 60, 363—380.
46.
SomersP., WoodhouseS., and ComerJ. (2000). Persistence of first-generation college students (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, Sacramento, CA.
47.
StageF. K., and HosslerD. (1989). Differences in family influences on college attendance plans for male and female ninth graders. Research in Higher Education, 30, 301—315.
48.
Stanton-SalazarR. (1997). A social capital framework for understanding the socialization of racial minority children and youth. Harvard Education Review, 67, 1—39.
49.
TerenziniP. T. (1994). The transition to college: Diverse students, diverse stories. Research in Higher Education, 35, 57—73.
50.
ZimmermanB. J. (1995). Self-efficacy and educational development. In and and BanduraA. (Ed.), Self-efficacy in changing societies (pp. 202—231). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
