Students' Narratives of Paying for College

What is it about?

How do students figure out how much college costs and how they can afford to attend? We use data from interviews with students attending a public flagship university to understand this process. We found three primary sources of information and financial resources: parents, counselors and other school administrators, and students themselves. Students from different racial and class backgrounds draw on different sources, forming four pathways to financing college.

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Why is it important?

Earning a college degree increases earnings, yet college is expensive and students and their families struggle to understand how much college costs. We know surprisingly little about the processes involved—that is, the details of students’ understandings and experiences of navigating college costs, differences when race and first-generation-student background intersect, and changes over students’ college careers. By examining college financing from students’ perspectives and following them over time, this article enriches sociological understandings of how students finance college and of the continuing reproduction of inequality.