Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Specialization

Communication and Leadership

School or Department

School of Leadership Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Michael Hazel

Second Advisor

Dr. Carolyn Cunningham

Abstract

The college admissions process often disadvantages low-income students because they lack equal access to the information channels used by their more affluent peers. Especially for the most selective colleges, income has been shown to substantially impact the application behaviors and enrollment decisions of low-income students. Low-income students are more likely to be “under-matched,” which means they fail to enroll at colleges that meet their academic qualifications. According to one national data sample, 40.9% of all college students are under-matched, and 16.1% are “substantially under-matched,” meaning they are enrolled at a school two levels below their selectivity match (Smith, Pender, & Howell, 2013). However, low-income are the most likely to under-match (Smith et al., 2013; Hoxby & Avery, 2012). Some selective colleges, however, have designed interventions to better communicate with low-income students and mitigate these problems. This study attempts to understand this communication problem in light of social cognitive theory and theories of social and cultural capital. It analyzes Gonzaga’s own record of communication with students across the income spectrum during the admissions process. Using data from an annual admitted student survey, it considers the statistical relationships between parent income, use of available information channels, and the enrollment decisions of its admitted students. The study did find some associations between these variables at levels of significance < .05, confirming that greater levels of income may be associated with greater access to some information channels. However, the magnitudes of these relationships were generally weak, with only a few instances revealing moderate levels of strength. The data collected does show a high incidence of under-matching among students who did not enroll at Gonzaga. However, although income and college match showed a relationship that was statistically significant, it also proved very weak in magnitude.

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