Book description
Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiance. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and…
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Why read it?
1 author picked Paying for the Party as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
In 2004, sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton set up camp in a dorm at Indiana University with the aim of writing an ethnography of the girls on the floor. They tracked the girls for five years, documenting their education, social lives, and post-college outcomes. As the product of a flagship state university myself, this book floored me. Armstrong and Hamilton document a process whereby administrators attract wealthy full-tuition students by subsidizing Greek life and creating legitimate-sounding but low-value majors. Far from being an equalizer, the rich leave university employed and debt-free, while the poor leave with staggering debt and…
From Elizabeth's list on The best social science books to explain how people shape, and are shaped by, their communities.
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