Paying For The Party, Armstrong And Hamilton

Reading Response 2
In their book Paying for the Party, Armstrong and Hamilton discuss how universities take class differences and class projects of distinct women to define what will be their college experience. In their book, Armstrong and Hamilton define class projects as individual and class characteristics that defines a person’s agenda and class- based orientation. Hence, people with similar class projects, not only shared the same financial and cultural resources, but also the same expectations toward school. (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). As a result, Armstrong and Hamilton claims that students with similar class projects end up becoming a collective constituency and a representative group for the university, whom in turn must take their interests to form a college pathway for them. Therefore, a college pathway for Armstrong and Hamilton refers to how universities are able to take successfully the interests, class characteristics and expectations of students to mold within the organizational and architecture context of the school. In a way, each college pathway is built not only to represent, but also to provision and guide the different types of students in a college.
According to Armstrong and Hamilton, there are three types of college pathways: the party pathway built for the most socially and upper class oriented students; the mobility pathway designed for the least privilege and more vocationally oriented and the professional pathway built for the most competitive and ambitious students. Armstrong and Hamilton claims that each college pathway requires a lot of the university resources, like time and energy, to be built and conserve. Moreover, there is also the constant challenge from the university to balance the deve...

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...he mobility pathway benefits when the least privilege students receive tuitions that are low, the financial aid is adequate and they are able to receive both loans and grants. Moreover, the mobility students can benefit if there are special programs targeted for them and if they are constantly guided by the university staff (Armstrong & Hamilton, 2013). Therefore, I feel that my college pathway is well supported at Cal because I am able to receive through the educational program both the economic, social and cultural capital that I need, like grants, academic advising and peers to balance my school life. Finally, I also feel that Cal, in general, supports the mobility pathway, by making work- study, unsubsidized low- interest loans and other social services available and accessible to students. Thus, I feel that Cal supports effectively my stay in this college route.