Richard Arum

Co-sponsored by the Ecology Project and GSE Higher Education Program
Light lunch provided

College contexts and experiences potentially have implications for an individual's social, economic and political outcomes as well as for social inequality. Given that contemporary college students often focus only modest levels of effort on academic pursuits, researchers must take seriously a broader set of life-course outcomes to understand student behavior. This presentation examines life course experiences of a recent cohort of college students, who graduated in Spring 2009 during a period of significant economic difficulties in the U.S. and whose collegiate learning outcomes were documented earlier in Academically Adrift. What sort of post-college transitions – economically, socially and civically – did these students make as emerging adults, how did they understand their college and post-college experiences and to what extent did their outcomes vary? Results highlight the non-academic functions of college for contemporary students.