Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions of College Graduates

257 Pages·2014·1.21 MB·English

by  Richard Arum

Aspiring Adults Adrift

Aspiring Adults Adrift
Tentative Transitions of College Graduates
Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago and London
Richard Arum is professor in the Department of Sociology with a joint appointment
in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. Josipa Roksa is
associate professor of sociology and education and associate director of the Center
for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education at the University
of Virginia. Together they are the authors of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on
College Campuses.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2014 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2014.
Printed in the United States of America
23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-19115-7 (cloth)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-19728-9 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-19714-2 (e-book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226197142.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Arum, Richard, author.
Aspiring adults adrift : tentative transitions of college graduates / Richard Arum and
Josipa Roksa.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-19115-7 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-19728-9 (pbk. : alk.
paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-19714-2 (e-book) 1. College graduates—United States—
Social conditions. 2. College graduates—Employment—United States. 3. Education,
Higher—Social aspects—United States. 4.Education, Higher—United States—Public
opinion. 5. College graduates—United States—Attitudes. I. Roksa, Josipa, author.
II. Title.
LC191.94.A78 2014
331.11'445—dc23
2014012589
a This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
1 College and Emerging Adults 1
2 Social and Academic Learning in College 25
3 Making It in the Labor Market 53
4 Parents, Partners, and Optimism about the Future 83
5 A Way Forward 115
Appendix A: Data, Methods, and Statistical Analyses 137
Appendix B: Survey Instrument and Interview Protocol 171
Notes 207
Bibliography 229
Index 241

Acknowledgments
The research that led to this book was organized by the Social
Science Research Council (SSRC). The project began as part of
SSRC’s collaborative partnership with the Pathways to College
Network—an alliance of national organizations that advances
college opportunity for underserved students by raising pub-
lic awareness, supporting innovative research, and promoting
evidence-based policies and practices across the K–12 and higher
education sectors. The initial phase of the project focused on stu-
dents’ experiences and development of general collegiate skills
(critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing) during the
first two years of college, published in Academically Adrift: Lim-
ited Learning on College Campuses. Subsequent work followed this
collegiate cohort through the end of the senior year and into life
after college.
This research project was made possible by generous support
from the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Carnegie Cor-
poration of New York, and the Teagle Foundation, as well as by
support for the initial stage of the project from the Ford Founda-
tion. We are especially grateful to the following foundation offi-
cers, whose insights and support have been crucial to the project’s
development: Tina Gridiron, Dewayne Matthews, Jamie Meriso-
tis, and Susan Johnson (Lumina Foundation); Barbara Gombach
(Carnegie Corporation of New York); Donna Heiland, W. Robert
viii Acknowledgments
Conner, Annie Bezbatchenko, and Richard Morrill (Teagle Foundation);
and Jorge Balan and Greg Anderson (Ford Foundation). We also are deeply
grateful to the Council for Aid to Education for its technical collabora-
tion with data collection while students were in college, as well as to Har-
ris Interactive for its assistance with data collection after graduation. Our
deepest gratitude goes to the students—and eventual graduates—who vol-
unteered and agreed to participate in the various phases of this research
project, as well as to the administrators and staff who coordinated the ini-
tial data collection efforts at their colleges and universities.
Early phases of this project benefited from the wise counsel of our advi-
sory board, including Pedro Reyes, professor and executive vice chancellor
for academic affairs at the University of Texas; Myra Burnett, vice provost
for academic affairs and associate professor of psychology at Spelman Col-
lege; William (Bill) Trent, professor of education, organization, and lead-
ership at the University of Illinois; and Meredith Phillips, associate pro-
fessor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los
Angeles. We also received valuable feedback from colleagues across dif-
ferent universities where we presented the preliminary findings in 2013,
including Stanford University’s School of Education (January 6), the Joint
Degree Program in Social Policy at Princeton University (September 30),
the Sociology Colloquium at Yale University (December 6), and the So-
ciology Colloquium at the University of California, Berkeley (Decem-
ber 10). We are particularly grateful to Jonathan Zimmerman and students
in the fall 2013 doctoral seminar “Educational Research in the United
States: Problems and Possibilities,” and to Joan Malczewski and students
in the fall 2013 course “How Do Colleges Work?” at New York University.
We also thank the anonymous reviewers at the University of Chicago Press
for their close reading of the manuscript and constructive feedback.
At the Social Science Research Council, program coordinators Kim
Pereira (2007–8), Jeannie Kim (2008–10), Esther Yoona Cho (2010–12),
and Amanda Cook (2013–14) masterfully coordinated different aspects of
the project. Additional assistance with data organization and coding was
provided by Raynika Trent, while Rachel Wetts skillfully formatted the ta-
bles and figures for the book. Jeannie Kim and Esther Yoona Cho, who left
the SSRC to pursue graduate studies at New York University and the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley, continued to provide research assistance to
the project and served as coauthors of chapters 3 and 4, respectively. Two
additional NYU graduate students—Jason Thompson, coauthor of chap-
ter 2, and Karly Sarita Ford, coauthor of chapter 4—contributed valuable
insights to the book. Amanda Cook, who joined the project most recently,
Acknowledgments ix
quickly became an indispensable part of the research team. She served as
coauthor of chapter 3 and provided technical and editorial assistance for
the book as a whole.
We owe a special thank-you to Elizabeth Branch Dyson, our editor at the
University of Chicago Press. Her enthusiasm and belief in this project kept
us writing, and her astute questions and thoughtful feedback sharpened
our arguments. We are also grateful to the dedicated staff at the University
of Chicago Press who assisted with the final revisions and the publication
process. In particular, we would like to thank Nora Devlin for her techni-
cal assistance and Renaldo Migaldi for his careful and thoughtful editorial
work. We are also grateful to Levi Stahl for his energetic engagement with
this project.
Our deepest personal gratitude goes to those who have lived through
every single page of this manuscript with us (multiple times!), and who
patiently supported us. Thank you to Shenandoah for all the conversa-
tions, intellectual and personal, that fueled the long hours of writing, as
well as for knowing when it was time to take a break. Gratitude to Joan
for providing ongoing constructive engagement and steadfast support on
the project. Inspiration and motivation for the project, was also provided
by Sydney and Eero, who began college, Luke and Zora, who started high
school, and Elias Jonathan, who joined our lives, since Academically Adrift
was published.
While this research would not have been possible without the contribu-
tions from the individuals and institutions identified above, we, Richard
Arum and Josipa Roksa, are fully responsible for all findings presented,
claims made, and opinions expressed in this book. Our names are given in
alphabetical order to represent our equal contributions to this volume.