@article{1481722,
      recid = {1481722},
      author = {Armstrong, Elizabeth A., and Hamilton, Laura T.,},
      title = {Paying for the Party : How College Maintains Inequality /},
      pages = {1 online resource :},
      abstract = {Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their  education at a big state university. Five years later, one  is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm.  With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable  apartment with her fiancé. The other woman, saddled with  burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to  finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing  tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth  it," Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution  to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher  education. A powerful exposé of unmet obligations and  misplaced priorities, it explains in vivid detail why so  many leave college with so little to show for it. Drawing  on findings from a five-year interview study, Elizabeth  Armstrong and Laura Hamilton bring us to the campus of  "MU," a flagship Midwestern public university, where we  follow a group of women drawn into a culture of status  seeking and sororities. Mapping different pathways  available to MU students, the authors demonstrate that the  most well-resourced and seductive route is a "party  pathway" anchored in the Greek system and facilitated by  the administration. This pathway exerts influence over the  academic and social experiences of all students, and while  it benefits the affluent and well-connected, Armstrong and  Hamilton make clear how it seriously disadvantages the  majority. Eye-opening and provocative, Paying for the Party  reveals how outcomes can differ so dramatically for those  whom universities enroll.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/1481722},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674073517},
}