A Dream Deferred?: Examining the Degree Aspirations of African American and White College Students (RoutledgeFalmer Studies in Higher Education)

In this book, Deborah Faye Carter studies the individual and institutional factors affecting the degree aspirations--the dreams--of White and African American college students through the use of two, national, longitudinal databases of college students. One sample had older students, more students attending two-year institutions and students from a wider range of backgrounds and experinces. The other sample was more traditional-aged, and the students tended to have more postsecondary institutional choices. The use of both databases (and therefore both samples) informed the understanding of degree aspirations that the use of only one database could not since the students in each sample attended different kinds of institutions and had different kinds of college experiences. The results of the study show how complex relationships of the factors that affect aspirations between the two samples and between African American and White students in each sample. This book contributes to higher education's theoretical understanding of the meritocratic and constraining influences on students' degree aspirations. Further, this study examines the processes that unqiuely affect African American college students in comparison to White students and how these processes differ in a traditional student sample versus a sample that is more representative of the diverse postsecondary institution attendees across the country. Finally, there are a number of implications for practice from this study including institutional programming to support studetns' goals and for institutions to continue to examine the impact of financial aid support on sutdents deciding whether they can attend college, and whether they can afford to earn a graduate degree.