Research Catalog

Title

Beating the odds : how the poor get to college / Arthur Levine, Jana Nidiffer.

Author

Levine, Arthur.

Publication

San Francisco : Jossey-Bass Publishers, ©1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Nidiffer, Jana, 1957-

Description

xx, 204 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

• Students from families in the bottom income bracket are eight times less likely to graduate from college than those in the rest of the population. The gap in college attendance between rich and poor is actually growing. The stark reality today is that poverty is becoming increasingly inescapable, and the traditional pathways out of poverty are failing.
• But some poor people do escape. Beating the Odds asks how the barrier of poverty can be overcome. It focuses on the anomalies, or success stories - the small percentage who somehow make it to college. Drawing on their own study of twenty-four poor, first-generation college students, the authors ask what factors - relationships, resources, and activities - made a difference? What happened in their lives that enabled them to beat the odds? How did they come to attend college when their parents had not, when their neighbors had not, and when most students at their local schools had not? The aim of the book is to try to understand the reasons for their success. The authors ask the most critical question: Is it possible to reproduce those factors and thereby provide college opportunity and access for disadvantaged people generally? And they conclude with recommendations about what social and educational policy toward the poor should look like to be most effective in the future.

Series Statement

The Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series

Uniform Title

Jossey-Bass higher and adult education series

Subject

• People with social disabilities > Education (Higher) > United States
• Poor > Education (Higher) > United States
• Women > Education (Higher) > United States
• Universities and colleges > United States > Admission
• People with social disabilities > Education (Higher)
• Poor > Education (Higher)
• Universities and colleges > Admission
• Women > Education (Higher)
• Unterprivilegierung
• College
• Unterschicht
• Höheres Bildungswesen
• United States
• USA
• USA

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-197) and index.

Contents

Prologue: Why the odds don't change for the poor -- Part 1: Weighing the odds -- The odds against escaping from poverty -- The odds against going to college -- Part 2: Beating the odds -- A portrait of twenty-four who succeeded -- Hitting the jackpot: entree to the elites -- Betting the farm: the struggle to get in the door -- Part 3: Improving the odds -- Nine mentors who changed the odds -- The lesson: one arm around one child -- Evening the odds: making college possible for the poor -- Appendix A: Brief biographies of the twenty-four students interviewed -- Appendix B: Comparative statistics.

ISBN

• 0787901326
• 9780787901325

LCCN

95009137

OCLC

• ocm32468827
• 32468827
• SCSB-8919917

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library