Jack, Anthony Abraham. The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Anthony Jack begins by acknowledging that elite universities have made some progress in recruiting economically disadvantaged students. His concern, however, focuses on what happens with these students once they arrive on campus. Through his two-year study of students at Harvard, he identifies two distinct groups: The Privileged Poor and the Doubly Disadvantaged Poor. The first group came to Harvard from elited preparatory schools; often boarding schools where they had a chance to acclimate to the social and cultural norms of wealthy peers. The difficulties they experienced upon entering Harvard stemmed more from their lack of monetary resources and concerns about problems occurring with their families back home. Doubly Disadvantaged students struggled not only with monetary difficulties but also with the shock of entering a foreign culture. Nothing in their previous experiences prepared them for the social norms of their affluence of their peers. Jack explores how these difficulties manifest themselves both academically and socially. He recommends several steps that elite universities (or for that matter any higher education institution) could take to support both groups of economically disadvantaged students.