Pathways to financing college: Race and class in students’ narratives of paying for school

Researchers have investigated many aspects of college financing. Yet, we know little about the processes involved—that is, the details of students’ understandings and experiences, intersectional differences by race and first-generation-student background, and changes over students’ college careers. Based on students’ narratives, this article addresses these gaps in the literature by developing the concept of pathways to financing college to capture race- and class-based inequalities in the financial, cultural, and social capital students draw on as they navigate college costs and how these resources change over time. We find four pathways: (1) white students whose parents attended college relied on their parents’ financial and cultural capital; (2) white first-generation students initially received financial help from parents, but these resources ran out, leaving a burden on students in the later years of college; (3) black students whose parents attended college pieced together capital from multiple sources, including social capital from parents’ networks; and (4) black and Latina/o first-generation students shouldered the burden themselves. Our qualitative, intersectional, and longitudinal approach sheds new light on the social reproduction of inequalities by documenting inconsistencies in financial, cultural, and social capital provided by parents and counselors throughout students’ college careers and how students lacking such resources often muddle through alone.