Curry Common Read: Educated

Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how--and why--disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges, and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors--and their coffers--to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students?

Clearing the Path for First-Generation College Students offers timely, empirical examinations of the ways that these students negotiate experiences shaped by structural inequities in higher education institutions and the pathways that lead to them. This volume provides insight into the dilemmas that arise from the transformation of students' class identities in pursuit of upward mobility, as well as their quest for community and a sense of "belonging" on college campuses that have not been historically designed for them. While centering first-generation status, this collection also critically engages the ways in which other dimensions of social identity intersect to inform students' educational experiences in relation to dynamics of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender, and immigration.

This is a book for all faculty who are concerned with promoting the persistence of all students whom they teach. At a time when the numbers of underrepresented students - working adults, minority, first-generation, low-income, and international students - is increasing, this book, a companion to the earlier Teaching Underprepared Students, addresses that lack of specific guidance by providing faculty with additional evidence-based instructional practices geared toward reaching all the students in their classrooms.