Privileged careerists, working-class idealists: complicating the relationship of class, college values, and curricular choices

ABSTRACT Research suggests that class-privileged students value learning for its own sake and study the liberal arts, while working-class students believe college is a means to an end. However, recent studies indicate that these associations are weakening. This paper investigates the link between class background, college values, and curricular choices, specifically course selection. In interviews with 68 working- and upper-middle-class liberal arts majors at two public universities in the northeastern U.S., nearly all students endorsed liberal education values (the belief that higher education is for personal edification) which they claimed to value above labor market outcomes. Working-class students chose courses in accordance with those values; however, upper-middle-class students chose courses for perceived career relevance or those rumored to be an ‘easy A’. Although it appears that college logics have flipped, I argue that they remain rooted in social class. I then consider implications for social reproduction: while working-class students’ adoption of traditional HE values and practices suggests some leveling of the playing field, it means little if privileged students have moved the goalposts to maintain advantage. I apply Sigal Alon’s theory of effectively expanded inequality, whereby the privileged classes adapt to increased access and competition by deploying new strategies to secure their class position.