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Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality
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.
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.
344 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2013
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3257 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth A. Armstrong
3 books8 followersElizabeth A. Armstrong is a sociologist with research interests in the areas of sexuality, gender, culture, organizations, social movements, and higher education.
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September 19, 2013
This book would be very good to read for anyone whose daughter is going away to college soon. Two researchers spend a year on a dorm floor at "Midwest University" or "MU". I read about the book in the New York Times and they said though the school is not identified in the book it is Indiana University. What they found could be applied to any flagship school in any state. They interviewed and paid attention to the social and academic careers of a group of 53 young women not only in freshman year but after graduation (or dropping out).
There are so many interesting things to talk about from this book. What they found out was going to the same University is not a great equalizer. That the young women, mostly out-of-state, from wealthy or upper middle class families never did make friends with those of other economic classes even when they were roommates. These girls came to the University to follow "The Party Path". These girls were very much into getting into a sorority and almost all had easy majors such as fashion design, sports management, hospitality, etc. These girls were able to get great internships and decent jobs after graduating because of family connections. A young women making $30,000 in a big city can do fine if they have no school loans, rent paid for them, insurance, etc. But, another young person without the financial assistance of rich parents would struggle in the identical job. It is an uneven playing field. The economically blessed women also didn't want to find a husband in college but wanted to be one their own for awhile but because of their economic status, they were exposed to men that were achievers for potential mates down the line.
The "wannabes" had it the hardest. Those that did try to break the barriers and get in the sororities could not afford to do so in the end. They were less protected from the fraternity men (the wealthy girls knew how to keep themselves safer and who to avoid and the fraternity guys knew not to cross the line with them) and had some pretty bad experiences. If they decide to switch to an easy major, they did not have the connections to get the internships and did not even do well academically.
The upper middle class and middle class girls that came from supportive and knowledgeable families did well. They had parents that supported them financial as best they could, didn't let them change majors to a Major-Lites, made them aware of learning communities and how to connect with other academically minded students.
The middle class and lower middle class girls that had the most upward mobility turned out to be the ones that left after their freshman year to go to a regional college or a satellite school where the Party Path was not possible.
The only lower class girl (out of four) that went on to upper mobility was the one that was "creamed". She got into a program that nurtured her and made sure she was doing well.
There are many interesting things to think about in this book. At first, I thought the whole book would just be restating what they said in the first chapter. But, it ended up being interesting to the end. As the public university financial support dwindles from the State government, the flagship schools have to attract out-of-state and foreign students that do not tuition assistance. The authors think schools need to eliminate "The Party Path", do away with Major-Lites and de-emphasis the Greek system.
There is a lot more I could say about this book, but I won't go on and on. It was very interesting.
There are so many interesting things to talk about from this book. What they found out was going to the same University is not a great equalizer. That the young women, mostly out-of-state, from wealthy or upper middle class families never did make friends with those of other economic classes even when they were roommates. These girls came to the University to follow "The Party Path". These girls were very much into getting into a sorority and almost all had easy majors such as fashion design, sports management, hospitality, etc. These girls were able to get great internships and decent jobs after graduating because of family connections. A young women making $30,000 in a big city can do fine if they have no school loans, rent paid for them, insurance, etc. But, another young person without the financial assistance of rich parents would struggle in the identical job. It is an uneven playing field. The economically blessed women also didn't want to find a husband in college but wanted to be one their own for awhile but because of their economic status, they were exposed to men that were achievers for potential mates down the line.
The "wannabes" had it the hardest. Those that did try to break the barriers and get in the sororities could not afford to do so in the end. They were less protected from the fraternity men (the wealthy girls knew how to keep themselves safer and who to avoid and the fraternity guys knew not to cross the line with them) and had some pretty bad experiences. If they decide to switch to an easy major, they did not have the connections to get the internships and did not even do well academically.
The upper middle class and middle class girls that came from supportive and knowledgeable families did well. They had parents that supported them financial as best they could, didn't let them change majors to a Major-Lites, made them aware of learning communities and how to connect with other academically minded students.
The middle class and lower middle class girls that had the most upward mobility turned out to be the ones that left after their freshman year to go to a regional college or a satellite school where the Party Path was not possible.
The only lower class girl (out of four) that went on to upper mobility was the one that was "creamed". She got into a program that nurtured her and made sure she was doing well.
There are many interesting things to think about in this book. At first, I thought the whole book would just be restating what they said in the first chapter. But, it ended up being interesting to the end. As the public university financial support dwindles from the State government, the flagship schools have to attract out-of-state and foreign students that do not tuition assistance. The authors think schools need to eliminate "The Party Path", do away with Major-Lites and de-emphasis the Greek system.
There is a lot more I could say about this book, but I won't go on and on. It was very interesting.
July 14, 2013
Sometime in my lifetime America stopped being, in comparison to other Western nations, a land of opportunity. I think it happened during the 1980s. If you're rich in this country nowadays, you stay rich. You pass on your wealth and connections to your children who live wonderful lives as well. If you're poor, you stay poor. The transformation of this country from one defined by upward mobility to one defined by economic stasis is one of the sadder things that has happened over the last 50 years.
Paying for the Party documents this transformation in the context of college life. Over a period of several years, two sociologists examine undergraduate women in a party dorm at the University of Indiana. Given my experiences teaching at an elite private school for fifteen years, I'm confident that what they saw would be seen at any school where median family incomes greatly exceed the national average. Rich kids at these schools don't study much, choose cheesy majors, get drunk and party, and yet, because of family connections, go on to find good jobs after they graduate. Poor and middle class kids at these schools who aren't wise enough to realize that they won't have the same parent-related boosts after graduation emulate the behavior of the rich kids and flounder.
Paying for the Party is a depressing book, but it is well documented and insightful. It's like watching the movie Mean Girls come to life, except that the rich meanies are on a college campus and not in high school. The behavior of the women chronicled made me sick to my stomach.
The authors try to pin much of the inequality in outcome for the students on the colleges themselves. I didn't buy this part of their argument. Yes, colleges have cheesy majors and yes they tolerate the brain dead activities of the Greek system, but even without gut classes and frats, the rich would find a way to muddle through college and still, somehow, find the brass ring come graduation time. Colleges like Indiana - whose low expectations and party hardy atmosphere were previously chronicled in the book Beer and Circus - aren't engines of economic opportunity for most, it's true. They could do more to help those students without the advantages of wealth. But once those kids graduate, they still have to find a good job and for those without decent grades, a job-oriented major, and family connections, most doors will be closed. I suppose colleges could, somehow, make a concerted effort to inform those born without privilege not to try to emulate the 1000 dollar handbag set, but I have doubts that such a campaign would be effective.
The bigger problem with flagship schools like Indiana and private schools like where I taught isn't that they don't do much for students from families of modest income. It's that the children of the wealthy dominate enrollments. It's hard to be an engine of economic opportunity when you select students in such a way that median family incomes at a school are double to quadruple of those of America as a whole. You can't keep the all the mean girls out, but you could, with admissions policies that aim for economic diversity, have fewer of them on a campus.
Paying for the Party documents this transformation in the context of college life. Over a period of several years, two sociologists examine undergraduate women in a party dorm at the University of Indiana. Given my experiences teaching at an elite private school for fifteen years, I'm confident that what they saw would be seen at any school where median family incomes greatly exceed the national average. Rich kids at these schools don't study much, choose cheesy majors, get drunk and party, and yet, because of family connections, go on to find good jobs after they graduate. Poor and middle class kids at these schools who aren't wise enough to realize that they won't have the same parent-related boosts after graduation emulate the behavior of the rich kids and flounder.
Paying for the Party is a depressing book, but it is well documented and insightful. It's like watching the movie Mean Girls come to life, except that the rich meanies are on a college campus and not in high school. The behavior of the women chronicled made me sick to my stomach.
The authors try to pin much of the inequality in outcome for the students on the colleges themselves. I didn't buy this part of their argument. Yes, colleges have cheesy majors and yes they tolerate the brain dead activities of the Greek system, but even without gut classes and frats, the rich would find a way to muddle through college and still, somehow, find the brass ring come graduation time. Colleges like Indiana - whose low expectations and party hardy atmosphere were previously chronicled in the book Beer and Circus - aren't engines of economic opportunity for most, it's true. They could do more to help those students without the advantages of wealth. But once those kids graduate, they still have to find a good job and for those without decent grades, a job-oriented major, and family connections, most doors will be closed. I suppose colleges could, somehow, make a concerted effort to inform those born without privilege not to try to emulate the 1000 dollar handbag set, but I have doubts that such a campaign would be effective.
The bigger problem with flagship schools like Indiana and private schools like where I taught isn't that they don't do much for students from families of modest income. It's that the children of the wealthy dominate enrollments. It's hard to be an engine of economic opportunity when you select students in such a way that median family incomes at a school are double to quadruple of those of America as a whole. You can't keep the all the mean girls out, but you could, with admissions policies that aim for economic diversity, have fewer of them on a campus.
September 7, 2014
I don't have children of my own, but after reading this book, I'm not sure I would advise them to go to college.
And I'm a college professor.
Armstrong & Hamilton's work comes in the wake of large-scale, quantitatively driven work that has cast into question the assertion that a college education is a path to upward mobility. They and their graduate student research assistants lived in close quarters with a group of 50 women in a "party dorm" at a "large Midwestern university." They show how the women are draw into the party scene and the frenzy of trying to pledge to a elite sorority, and the toll that takes on their academic progress and (for at least some students) how it ultimately impacts their professional and social trajectories after college. They identify three possible pathways: the party pathway, the professional pathway, and the mobility pathway that students could follow upon entry into MU. Within each pathway, they show how some women strive to succeed on that pathway while others struggle, and how those successes and failures shape their post-collegiate prospects.
Although the research was done at a large public research university, and although the authors carefully qualify their findings and are cautious about making any generalizations about the college experience more broadly, Qualitative research of this types begs for similar types of projects, to study, for example, how male students navigate these pathways, or what the pathways look like on private or less elite colleges. But as I was reading, I couldn't help but feel that their findings might be relevant at other types of campuses. It's been 20-plus years since I graduated from an elite small liberal arts college, but much of what they write about the party pathway rang true for me.
I've thought about offering this book to several of my friends, who are now touring college campuses with children on the brink of this decision. And even as I consider that, I've been able to anticipate some of their objections, e.g., oh, a book like that wouldn't be relevant to us in our search, because our kid is only looking at SLACs, or Ivies, or whatever. But part of the power of Armstrong & Hamilton's work, I think, comes from the fact that they were working on a large, public university. Even if you don't have kids in school on campuses like this, we all have a stake in the fate of our public universities. And I was constantly reminded while reading this book that public investment in public higher ed has declined over the past several decades, so if our public universities are in this fix, it is at least in part because we, as citizens, have failed to support them or to challenge them to do better.
And I'm a college professor.
Armstrong & Hamilton's work comes in the wake of large-scale, quantitatively driven work that has cast into question the assertion that a college education is a path to upward mobility. They and their graduate student research assistants lived in close quarters with a group of 50 women in a "party dorm" at a "large Midwestern university." They show how the women are draw into the party scene and the frenzy of trying to pledge to a elite sorority, and the toll that takes on their academic progress and (for at least some students) how it ultimately impacts their professional and social trajectories after college. They identify three possible pathways: the party pathway, the professional pathway, and the mobility pathway that students could follow upon entry into MU. Within each pathway, they show how some women strive to succeed on that pathway while others struggle, and how those successes and failures shape their post-collegiate prospects.
Although the research was done at a large public research university, and although the authors carefully qualify their findings and are cautious about making any generalizations about the college experience more broadly, Qualitative research of this types begs for similar types of projects, to study, for example, how male students navigate these pathways, or what the pathways look like on private or less elite colleges. But as I was reading, I couldn't help but feel that their findings might be relevant at other types of campuses. It's been 20-plus years since I graduated from an elite small liberal arts college, but much of what they write about the party pathway rang true for me.
I've thought about offering this book to several of my friends, who are now touring college campuses with children on the brink of this decision. And even as I consider that, I've been able to anticipate some of their objections, e.g., oh, a book like that wouldn't be relevant to us in our search, because our kid is only looking at SLACs, or Ivies, or whatever. But part of the power of Armstrong & Hamilton's work, I think, comes from the fact that they were working on a large, public university. Even if you don't have kids in school on campuses like this, we all have a stake in the fate of our public universities. And I was constantly reminded while reading this book that public investment in public higher ed has declined over the past several decades, so if our public universities are in this fix, it is at least in part because we, as citizens, have failed to support them or to challenge them to do better.
March 18, 2023
I came into this interested to see my experiences with Greek life/college more broadly articulated sociologically, to have words put in place of phenomenons I require paragraphs to describe. I got that, but I also reckoned with class tensions at universities, pathways of mobility, reproductions of privilege, and the role of the university in manufacturing all of this. It posed so many good questions about the current and future landscape of higher education. Despite this study being done in the mid 2000s and at a school nine times the size of mine, so many experiences carried through. It was a really interesting read but a bit dense, nonetheless likely the most accessible book of its type. I SO recommend it to any college student.
Here are some things that I found either particularly resonant or interesting:
- “Erotic desire,” or what authors Armstrong and Hamilton call the phenomenon of students deriving social status from the attractiveness/social status of who they hook up with. I’ve literally been searching for this phrase for YEARS!!
- “Ivy islands,” a phrase not from these authors but Steven Brint, which are the select elite universities where the children of the extremely wealthy enjoy their college experience essentially separated from the rest of the world. It got me thinking about Dartmouth in this and the (self? or maybe not?) segregation at the school — how infrequent people of different classes and races tend to join in one friend group.
- The effortless perfection expected of women at Duke, as described in 2003: women have to be fun and able to party, but also academically outstanding, but also in a top sorority, etc. etc. And if all has to be effortless. It made me think about the scene in the movie Booksmart where the main character realized that all of the “popular” (and seemingly slacker) kids are just as smart as her — or at least got into the same colleges as her.
- The phenomenon of the most socially-integrated people having the most success post-graduation was really interesting — a mix of the positive effects of knowing how to social network plus the fact that social integration is often aided by financial stability/class privilege that is more easily reproduced.
- Basically EVERYTHING about Greek life… too much to summarize
- People who view other people as socially below them will (at best) dismissively acknowledge them or (at worst) explicitly ignore them. Funny how this experience is everywhere.
- Everything that goes into a university is so complicated — athletics, legacies, prestige, rankings, full-tuition.
Here are some things that I found either particularly resonant or interesting:
- “Erotic desire,” or what authors Armstrong and Hamilton call the phenomenon of students deriving social status from the attractiveness/social status of who they hook up with. I’ve literally been searching for this phrase for YEARS!!
- “Ivy islands,” a phrase not from these authors but Steven Brint, which are the select elite universities where the children of the extremely wealthy enjoy their college experience essentially separated from the rest of the world. It got me thinking about Dartmouth in this and the (self? or maybe not?) segregation at the school — how infrequent people of different classes and races tend to join in one friend group.
- The effortless perfection expected of women at Duke, as described in 2003: women have to be fun and able to party, but also academically outstanding, but also in a top sorority, etc. etc. And if all has to be effortless. It made me think about the scene in the movie Booksmart where the main character realized that all of the “popular” (and seemingly slacker) kids are just as smart as her — or at least got into the same colleges as her.
- The phenomenon of the most socially-integrated people having the most success post-graduation was really interesting — a mix of the positive effects of knowing how to social network plus the fact that social integration is often aided by financial stability/class privilege that is more easily reproduced.
- Basically EVERYTHING about Greek life… too much to summarize
- People who view other people as socially below them will (at best) dismissively acknowledge them or (at worst) explicitly ignore them. Funny how this experience is everywhere.
- Everything that goes into a university is so complicated — athletics, legacies, prestige, rankings, full-tuition.
August 23, 2020
I mean this is essentially a 250-page research paper so it's not always the most riveting. But I thought the study and its findings were fascinating and I would definitely recommend this source if you're interested in the topic. I can't wait to write a ten-page paper on it!!!!
December 8, 2017
I think everyone should read this book, some point in their lives.
September 18, 2025
Every so often, you come across a book that changes how you see the world you inhabit. It articulates something you had sensed but could not put into words yourself. For me, Paying for the Party is that book. Everyone who has been to college, works at a college, is considering college, or plans to send their kids to college should read this book. It is a positively withering indictment of how universities work these days and how we need to do better by our students, faculties, and communities. It is also incredibly poignant. The profiles of the freshmen women interviewed by the authors are sensitive and clear-eyed. This book brought back emotions I didn't realize that I was still carrying with me from my own early days in college.
August 12, 2024
The authors lived on a floor of a ‘party dorm’ at Midwest U. Their study of the young women on the floor is very depressing for anyone interested in the state of higher education in the US. As state legislators have cut funding to state schools, said schools have been forced to rely more heavily on tuition dollars, and tuition is highest for out-of-state students. These students tend to be affluent and are often drawn to the ‘easy majors’ the university has created to allow them to maintain a heavy party schedule. (Event planning?! Sports communication and broadcasting?! Tourism?!). Many of these majors are feeders for jobs that don’t actually require college degrees but do require connections and continuing parental support in moving to and living in big cities. So for the less affluent who don’t know this, they are up shit creek and their parents can’t afford to buy them a paddle. So affluent students who take the ‘party pathway’ often do just fine but less affluent students are left to struggle as a result of poor advising and a university that caters to the Greek scene. So universities are forgoing academic rigor and contributing to the widening economic disparity between social classes in this country. As an academic at a large public research university, this book helped me to get a better understanding of the extreme disengagement of students in my entry-level classes. It’s just so very sad, and unless the US returns to taking seriously its commitment to public higher education, the whole situation is just going to get worse.
November 27, 2018
I love how sociological research is able to condense the day-to-day experiences of many into patterns of behavior that resonate through the masses. This was a fascinating read of qualitative research that follows women through their university journey and shows the implications that their varying economic backgrounds and social lives have on their exit trajectories, adding to the canon of literature debating the “bang for the buck” of college. This should be required reading for higher education professionals.
It’s amazing because before I knew that this research was conducted at Indiana University, I kept wondering if this was MSU maybe or UM, as I knew it took place at a “Midwestern public flagship research university.” It speaks to the generalizability of these findings, even years now after the initial study began. I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did, so I highly reccomend!
It’s amazing because before I knew that this research was conducted at Indiana University, I kept wondering if this was MSU maybe or UM, as I knew it took place at a “Midwestern public flagship research university.” It speaks to the generalizability of these findings, even years now after the initial study began. I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did, so I highly reccomend!
April 25, 2016
A wonderful ethnography and sociological analysis of a large Midwestern University's women's party dorm. Brought back lots of painful memories of college--at Iowa, Oxford, and Princeton. Trenchant analysis of mostly class stratification among college women. I now understand a lot more about the girls from the Chicago suburbs on my floor. Very sad outcomes for so many of the women strivers. Really documents the accumulation of class advantage.
February 15, 2017
Excellent look at what higher ed doesn't want to admit: your social status defines your pathway.
December 14, 2016
Over the course of five years, the researchers conducted interviews with women in a “party dorm” in “MU,” a large Midwestern flagship university, ranked in the top 100 schools nationally. While they initially intended to study sexuality, they learned that topic was a mere chapter in a much larger story about the ways that “the social and academic infrastructure of the university seemed tailor-made for a particular type of affluent, socially oriented student.” Instead of serving as an engine for social mobility, they found that the university actually “reinforces central class differences” through three pathways that the authors label party, mobility, and professional.
The party pathway “is built around an implicit agreement between the university and students to demand little of each other. Extremely affluent students with middling academic credentials are the ideal candidates” since they do not require scholarships, remediation, or faculty time. Students are placated through recreational activities, sports, and undemanding academics. This pathway “can exert a heavy pull on otherwise academically oriented students and cause them to lose their footing.”
The mobility pathway “provides vocational training…[for] majors that do not require family intervention for eventual success….students rely on what they learn in the classroom, rather than family ties or money, to get them a job.” But these students often need social integration to remain in school, which may lead them from the mobility to the party-pathway-to-perdition in a variety of ways beyond the partying and its effect on academic achievement. For example, less privileged students who arrived with “practical” majors observed their more affluent peers prepare for careers that in reality required a relevant social network, changed their own fields of study to those, and found absolutely no opportunities available to them. That lack of economic viability meant that they needed further education at considerable cost, adding to their debt burden, in order to prepare for a more pragmatic path.
The professional pathway “facilitates the conversion of class advantages into academic merit.” “Early focus and preparation” such as SAT prep, tutors, freedom from having to work or deal with the burdens that encumber the marginalized, along with “parental resources—time, money, social connections, and familiarity with college and the professional world” navigation are imperative to students’ professional success on this pathway. Credentials and drive are insufficient. “Successful professionals have to develop the social skills, networks, and shared experiences necessary to slide into upper-middle-class worlds.”
The authors analyze the ways MU ratifies these paths and the factors that cause students to succeed or fail on each of them. Most importantly, they conclude, “MU was far from a class equalizer in the lives of the women we studied. With the exception of one case of upward mobility and a significant minority of potentially downwardly mobile affluent students, women who stayed at MU were on track to land roughly in the same class location from with they started.” (This echoes the latest data from Raj Chetty’s team at Stanford, indicating that fewer and fewer of younger generations, certainly less than half, earn as much as their parents did). “Most upward mobility occurred among less privileged women who transferred from MU to regional campuses.”
There is so much for college admissions counselors, parents, and students to consider here, but it’s imperative to remember this is one university and thus a limited data set. Nevertheless, it's illuminating to contrast the significance of parental resources with the prevailing media message that college is *the* way to the middle class, when in reality, class largely perpetuates itself and if anything, can tip precariously downward. Still, it would be very challenging for all but the most discerning families and counselors to uncover the prevailing pathways and pitfalls at particular universities from a tour or website, and, even duly informed, families are not likely to grasp the consequences for their offspring.
The party pathway “is built around an implicit agreement between the university and students to demand little of each other. Extremely affluent students with middling academic credentials are the ideal candidates” since they do not require scholarships, remediation, or faculty time. Students are placated through recreational activities, sports, and undemanding academics. This pathway “can exert a heavy pull on otherwise academically oriented students and cause them to lose their footing.”
The mobility pathway “provides vocational training…[for] majors that do not require family intervention for eventual success….students rely on what they learn in the classroom, rather than family ties or money, to get them a job.” But these students often need social integration to remain in school, which may lead them from the mobility to the party-pathway-to-perdition in a variety of ways beyond the partying and its effect on academic achievement. For example, less privileged students who arrived with “practical” majors observed their more affluent peers prepare for careers that in reality required a relevant social network, changed their own fields of study to those, and found absolutely no opportunities available to them. That lack of economic viability meant that they needed further education at considerable cost, adding to their debt burden, in order to prepare for a more pragmatic path.
The professional pathway “facilitates the conversion of class advantages into academic merit.” “Early focus and preparation” such as SAT prep, tutors, freedom from having to work or deal with the burdens that encumber the marginalized, along with “parental resources—time, money, social connections, and familiarity with college and the professional world” navigation are imperative to students’ professional success on this pathway. Credentials and drive are insufficient. “Successful professionals have to develop the social skills, networks, and shared experiences necessary to slide into upper-middle-class worlds.”
The authors analyze the ways MU ratifies these paths and the factors that cause students to succeed or fail on each of them. Most importantly, they conclude, “MU was far from a class equalizer in the lives of the women we studied. With the exception of one case of upward mobility and a significant minority of potentially downwardly mobile affluent students, women who stayed at MU were on track to land roughly in the same class location from with they started.” (This echoes the latest data from Raj Chetty’s team at Stanford, indicating that fewer and fewer of younger generations, certainly less than half, earn as much as their parents did). “Most upward mobility occurred among less privileged women who transferred from MU to regional campuses.”
There is so much for college admissions counselors, parents, and students to consider here, but it’s imperative to remember this is one university and thus a limited data set. Nevertheless, it's illuminating to contrast the significance of parental resources with the prevailing media message that college is *the* way to the middle class, when in reality, class largely perpetuates itself and if anything, can tip precariously downward. Still, it would be very challenging for all but the most discerning families and counselors to uncover the prevailing pathways and pitfalls at particular universities from a tour or website, and, even duly informed, families are not likely to grasp the consequences for their offspring.
October 20, 2014
Some non-fiction is uplifting, some is informative, and some, like Paying for the Party, makes you at once sad and furious.
Paying for the Party is a book form of a sociological analysis of the life-paths of just under fifty girls who entered a 'party dorm' as a 'party school' in the United States University system. The book analysied their incoming university expectations, their class backgrounds, and than examined how each of them interacted with the dorm itself, with the institutional structures of the university, and what out-comes they achieved.
Central to the books thesis is this; that the Large 'public' universities in the US are touted as equalizers; as educational structures to allow the talented member of the middle and working class to move up in the world through education. They found that the Universities, in catering to specific students and specific 'pathways' in university, had produced results which were antithetical to this.
The Book identifies three 'pathways' through these schools; The Party pathway is designed for upper class youths who interact with the Greek System fully, end up in Sororities, take relatively easy majors, and parlay their social experiences in University, along with the support they relieve to their parents, into replicating their class privilege outside of university. Basically they can afford to 'party' throughout university because they will be supported afterward and have the social connections to get 'social' jobs; jobs for which traditional presentations of femininity, and the skills cultivated through sorority life will be valued above GPA's or particular degree's. The professional pathway is intended for those women who want professional lives. It demands strict adherance to elaborate systems in order to get particular professional degree's, along with the social networks that allow one ot utilize these degree's post graduation. Last is the mobility pathway; this is intended to allow working class and middle class women to get education in usable degree's that lead to better and higher employment and opportunistic than they might otherwise have.
The Book argues that the university facilitates the party pathway at the expense of the Professional and Mobility pathways, and because of the control the Greek System of Fraternities and Sororities has over the social life of the campus, even those entering the university with the intention to travel the later two pathways might be sucked into the party pathway. Ending up pulled into a life-style that is non-sustainable for those without rich parents.
Without getting too into it; Armstrong's book is a wake-up call. It identifies ways in which University education is fundamentally failing students. As the Ivy League universities pull away into their little Islands, the larger public universities because beholden to wealthy alumni and support social and educational experiences for what is ultimately a vast minority of students at the expense of the majority of students. The suggestions they level to alter this dynamic; such as ending the exclusive power of the Greek Organizations in controlling the social environment, are well thought out and mirror other issues which I think other researchers have identified.
It was refreshing to see a book actually examining how issues of class affected educational experience. It should be read by anyone in the field and anyone interested in understanding some of the outcomes and realities we are seeing with todays post graduation students.
Paying for the Party is a book form of a sociological analysis of the life-paths of just under fifty girls who entered a 'party dorm' as a 'party school' in the United States University system. The book analysied their incoming university expectations, their class backgrounds, and than examined how each of them interacted with the dorm itself, with the institutional structures of the university, and what out-comes they achieved.
Central to the books thesis is this; that the Large 'public' universities in the US are touted as equalizers; as educational structures to allow the talented member of the middle and working class to move up in the world through education. They found that the Universities, in catering to specific students and specific 'pathways' in university, had produced results which were antithetical to this.
The Book identifies three 'pathways' through these schools; The Party pathway is designed for upper class youths who interact with the Greek System fully, end up in Sororities, take relatively easy majors, and parlay their social experiences in University, along with the support they relieve to their parents, into replicating their class privilege outside of university. Basically they can afford to 'party' throughout university because they will be supported afterward and have the social connections to get 'social' jobs; jobs for which traditional presentations of femininity, and the skills cultivated through sorority life will be valued above GPA's or particular degree's. The professional pathway is intended for those women who want professional lives. It demands strict adherance to elaborate systems in order to get particular professional degree's, along with the social networks that allow one ot utilize these degree's post graduation. Last is the mobility pathway; this is intended to allow working class and middle class women to get education in usable degree's that lead to better and higher employment and opportunistic than they might otherwise have.
The Book argues that the university facilitates the party pathway at the expense of the Professional and Mobility pathways, and because of the control the Greek System of Fraternities and Sororities has over the social life of the campus, even those entering the university with the intention to travel the later two pathways might be sucked into the party pathway. Ending up pulled into a life-style that is non-sustainable for those without rich parents.
Without getting too into it; Armstrong's book is a wake-up call. It identifies ways in which University education is fundamentally failing students. As the Ivy League universities pull away into their little Islands, the larger public universities because beholden to wealthy alumni and support social and educational experiences for what is ultimately a vast minority of students at the expense of the majority of students. The suggestions they level to alter this dynamic; such as ending the exclusive power of the Greek Organizations in controlling the social environment, are well thought out and mirror other issues which I think other researchers have identified.
It was refreshing to see a book actually examining how issues of class affected educational experience. It should be read by anyone in the field and anyone interested in understanding some of the outcomes and realities we are seeing with todays post graduation students.
December 5, 2024
Um. Well this was something. This book and study had a lot of potential but it fell extremely flat. Reading it was also infuriating at points. Am i supposed to feel bad for the rich girls who are “less rich” than their peers and they partied throughout college and have poor grades and can’t graduate? Well if it isn’t the actions of your own consequences. I do not understand why we studied such a small group of people who were honestly, extremely similar. All of these girls could afford to be in sororities and go to college without loans, or only a small amount of loans. I’m sorry if you’re taking out less than $10,000 in loans to go to college, I’m not going to feel bad for you and how you got sucked into the party life and didn’t focus on studying. I hated how the authors tried to paint this as a “university problem” and not an individual problem. Also, why are you doing this study in one of the more affluent dorms on campus? Could you not have split time between other dorms? I could talk about this all day but this pissed me off.
April 15, 2025
Quite gossipy, not bad for a sociological read!
June 3, 2023
An interesting (and refreshingly jargon-light!) read. It’s odd to check the dates here and realize the women they studied were more or less my same time-cohort in college, even if in a different location; but the conclusions ring pretty true. One lightbulb moment for me was the explanation of class differences driving the split between “socialite” and “wannabe”: I never had the words for this until now, but that’s exactly right (and in hindsight, explains a lot).
(In the process, this book also makes me feel a little more sympathetic towards Younger Me���s massive culture shock on encountering a new layer of society with to-me unthinkable amounts of wealth: You weren’t wrong! This shit *is* weird, and nobody ever talks about it! All these years later and I am still only just beginning to understand.)
I was surprised to see what a large time gap there was between the end of the study and the book’s actual publication date - I wonder how much has changed over the past decade (and especially the cohort disrupted by COVID). I would have loved to at least see a follow-up survey now that we’re 10+ years out from graduation, to see whether their initial projections of class trajectory post-graduation have held true over time.
(In the process, this book also makes me feel a little more sympathetic towards Younger Me���s massive culture shock on encountering a new layer of society with to-me unthinkable amounts of wealth: You weren’t wrong! This shit *is* weird, and nobody ever talks about it! All these years later and I am still only just beginning to understand.)
I was surprised to see what a large time gap there was between the end of the study and the book’s actual publication date - I wonder how much has changed over the past decade (and especially the cohort disrupted by COVID). I would have loved to at least see a follow-up survey now that we’re 10+ years out from graduation, to see whether their initial projections of class trajectory post-graduation have held true over time.
December 24, 2019
In some ways this is unlike anything else I've ever read - it's a book-length report on a single multi-year study of 50 women that started in the same dorm at a public university. The central premise is that most students follow one of three pathways: "a party path" focused on social capital and generally relying on financial support from parents; a "professional path" focused on academic success and generally relying on more practical support from parents; and a "mobility path" focused on moving up from economic disadvantage. That finding is pretty interesting, and it's oddly neat to read about the college experience through the eyes of a sociologist -- but ultimately I only got halfway through the book, and while there are very important themes in here I'm not sure one study at one school is enough to fully flesh them out.
February 17, 2021
I read this for a book club. It has some interesting premises but the group names for people was off putting to me. Also, the general assumption that people aren’t happy if they aren’t upwardly mobile. It’s very strong feminist literature. I think it will make a good book club talk and I took a few things away to be on the look out for when my boy heads off to college.
April 3, 2023
As a college student and an "undergraduate higher-ed professional," I find this book incredibly interesting. The commentary on the gendered pathways large public universities offer for class mobility calls into question the purpose of higher education. Yet, despite its relatively dry nature as an academic text, it still made an exciting read.
November 9, 2024
A sociological study on people that are in the same stage of life as you is probably one of the most interesting things to read about. It was fun to picture where/who in this study I would fit in with and how similar their experiences are to mine despite the 20 years time difference. Probably one of my favorite things I’ve ever read - definitely a big recommend for anyone who is around the college age to better understand the places the people they surround themselves with are coming from.
May 3, 2021
Not surprised by what they found. Even from my own personal experience at a similar institution. Interesting read.
November 3, 2022
Great insight into how colleges are failing working-middle class students. Read for sociology, but I'm very glad it was assigned.
August 11, 2024
Depressing yet compelling account of the way the “party pathway” in post-secondary entrenches social inequalities. And you thought the point of a post-secondary education was the education!? Sad, yet it explains a lot.
December 12, 2014
Paying for the Party is a powerful, carefully researched, and ultimately furious work of social science. Its target is higher education - specifically, how female students make it through large public research universities. Armstrong and Hamilton conclude that these campuses are doing a bad job, and break this down meticulously.
The book is based on research conducted on a group of students attending "Midwestern University" (Ohio State, maybe?). The authors spent a great deal of time with 45 or so undergraduate women, living for part of a year on their shared dorm room floor. The resulting book is rich with conversations, analysis, and as much longitudinal followup as time permitted.
Armstrong and Hamilton identify a series of pathways students can take through the university experience. These include pathways based on partying, mobility (increasing class status), and professional attainment (getting skills for a specific job).
The Greek system plays a major and negative role in Paying for the Party. It grounds the "party pathway", a social environment that students can take which emphasizes fun, hooking up with wealthy people, and low academic achievement. This isn't news to many people, especially in academe, but it's rare to see it researched like this. "Greek organizations... [pair] like with like, or, in this case, affluent white women with affluent white men." (16)
Let me highlight some key points.
1a. These universities are biased in favor of the 1%.
"We argue that how Midwest University and many other large state schools currently organize the college experience systematically disadvantages all but the most affluent" (3)
"[T]he party pathway was a viable route to success for only a small, highly affluent segment of the MU population." (147)
"It is damning that not one of the working-class students graduated from MU in five years. It is instructive that they had to leave in order to graduate..." (179)
1b. The party pathway requires serious financial resources to make it work (217).
1c. MU failed as an economic mobility engine. "With the exception of one case... women who stayed at MU were on track to land roughly in the same class location from which they started." (216)
2. A generational shift has occurred, whereby young women tend not to go to college for Mrs. degrees. Instead they tend to aim for a degree, then set up a career, and only then select a husband. What a major shift this is!
3a. Many of the women (96%!) in this population avoided STEM fields. (70)
3b. Related: being a nerd is a hugely different, very positive alternative path. And yet it's scarcely available to any of these young women. I wish we'd heard more about why not. (149-152)
4. "MU" supported party pathway students by sustaining many lighter academic fields. Ouch. (72)
5. The studied group ended up split in two. One half went Greek; the other had no comparative social affiliation. The researchers dubbed them "isolates" 96), while the Greeks called them "the Dark Side".
6. Leaving MU and downshifting to a less prestigious campus ended up being a great move for many of the study group's women (176ff). This flies in the face of most American thinking about higher ed as hierarchy.
7. Parental roles are *hugely* influential. This reminds me of K-12, actually.
Those roles include extensive pre-college advice, guidance through majors and career choices while on campus (more effective than counselors!), providing financial support during college, ditto after college, helping the women with relationships. This isn't helicopter parenting, but something far more extensive.
8. As a large institution, MU didn't manage to integrate disparate populations into a single learning community. This was partly a matter of deliberate strategy: "The size and diversity of student bodies at MU and similar schools make [this] a challenge. We did not observe an effort on the part of MU to do so." (228)
I'd recommend Paying for the Party to anyone interested in higher education, especially on topics of gender, class, and access. It's a very important work to consider during our times, when we consider education reform.
The book is based on research conducted on a group of students attending "Midwestern University" (Ohio State, maybe?). The authors spent a great deal of time with 45 or so undergraduate women, living for part of a year on their shared dorm room floor. The resulting book is rich with conversations, analysis, and as much longitudinal followup as time permitted.
Armstrong and Hamilton identify a series of pathways students can take through the university experience. These include pathways based on partying, mobility (increasing class status), and professional attainment (getting skills for a specific job).
The Greek system plays a major and negative role in Paying for the Party. It grounds the "party pathway", a social environment that students can take which emphasizes fun, hooking up with wealthy people, and low academic achievement. This isn't news to many people, especially in academe, but it's rare to see it researched like this. "Greek organizations... [pair] like with like, or, in this case, affluent white women with affluent white men." (16)
Let me highlight some key points.
1a. These universities are biased in favor of the 1%.
"We argue that how Midwest University and many other large state schools currently organize the college experience systematically disadvantages all but the most affluent" (3)
"[T]he party pathway was a viable route to success for only a small, highly affluent segment of the MU population." (147)
"It is damning that not one of the working-class students graduated from MU in five years. It is instructive that they had to leave in order to graduate..." (179)
1b. The party pathway requires serious financial resources to make it work (217).
1c. MU failed as an economic mobility engine. "With the exception of one case... women who stayed at MU were on track to land roughly in the same class location from which they started." (216)
2. A generational shift has occurred, whereby young women tend not to go to college for Mrs. degrees. Instead they tend to aim for a degree, then set up a career, and only then select a husband. What a major shift this is!
3a. Many of the women (96%!) in this population avoided STEM fields. (70)
3b. Related: being a nerd is a hugely different, very positive alternative path. And yet it's scarcely available to any of these young women. I wish we'd heard more about why not. (149-152)
4. "MU" supported party pathway students by sustaining many lighter academic fields. Ouch. (72)
5. The studied group ended up split in two. One half went Greek; the other had no comparative social affiliation. The researchers dubbed them "isolates" 96), while the Greeks called them "the Dark Side".
6. Leaving MU and downshifting to a less prestigious campus ended up being a great move for many of the study group's women (176ff). This flies in the face of most American thinking about higher ed as hierarchy.
7. Parental roles are *hugely* influential. This reminds me of K-12, actually.
Those roles include extensive pre-college advice, guidance through majors and career choices while on campus (more effective than counselors!), providing financial support during college, ditto after college, helping the women with relationships. This isn't helicopter parenting, but something far more extensive.
8. As a large institution, MU didn't manage to integrate disparate populations into a single learning community. This was partly a matter of deliberate strategy: "The size and diversity of student bodies at MU and similar schools make [this] a challenge. We did not observe an effort on the part of MU to do so." (228)
I'd recommend Paying for the Party to anyone interested in higher education, especially on topics of gender, class, and access. It's a very important work to consider during our times, when we consider education reform.
October 20, 2013
So many times when we talk about the value of college, we know that the value of the college experience doesn't entirely lie in academics but we rarely try to quantify what, exactly it is about those social experiences that is useful. This book, which is really an academic study, attempts to answer that question.
The two researchers, Armstrong and Hamilton, spent several years tracking 53 women living on the floor of a freshman dorm at a large, flagship public university in the Midwest. (They never say exactly where, but my money's on Michigan.) The dorm they chose was a "party dorm," with a large percentage of the floor choosing to rush sororities. By taking detailed notes and conducting extensive interviews with the women, the researchers confirm that privilege begets privilege. The women with the financial resources (i.e. rich families) to support them through money to spend on impressive clothing for rushing a sororities (there's a great section on how even though all rushers had to wear the same T-shirts, it's the designer jeans and accessories that really mattered in whether you got called back to the next round) are the women who are much more likely to end up with social networks they find valuable in other ways. Women whose families are supportive but ask critical questions about which majors are more likely to yield a worthwhile career path are also more likely to see college as a good investment.
Mostly, though, what I found fascinating was their study of social isolation. The women who came from lower-class families were much more likely to feel socially isolated. Furthermore, when it became clear they weren't fitting in with the upper-class "party girls," they rarely formed their own social networks among themselves. One particularly compelling account documented a woman who talked about how she constantly tried to portray herself as on the phone -- via real or imaginary conversations -- so as not to seem like a loser with no friends. When the researchers interviewed another woman about her, she said that she was intimidated by this woman and didn't think they could possibly be friends because she was already so popular. Honestly, this research brought back some (not so great) memories about my freshman year of college, and the the extreme social disruption you feel that first year as a freshman.
This book is a great attempt at trying to map out the complex social structures of college. They point to the fact that Greek life is actually a huge problem and cements the existing class structures in terrible ways. The authors actually suggest eliminating it, and point out that as universities have fewer resources, they look to Greek organizations to share some of the burden of housing and social organizing. This is actually bad for the way the universities are structured, but unless the universities have an alternative, it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
There's obviously more work to be done on the social aspects of college, but I found this to be a fascinating look, if not a completely gripping narrative read (though there's probably enough material in their research to produce several good novels).
The two researchers, Armstrong and Hamilton, spent several years tracking 53 women living on the floor of a freshman dorm at a large, flagship public university in the Midwest. (They never say exactly where, but my money's on Michigan.) The dorm they chose was a "party dorm," with a large percentage of the floor choosing to rush sororities. By taking detailed notes and conducting extensive interviews with the women, the researchers confirm that privilege begets privilege. The women with the financial resources (i.e. rich families) to support them through money to spend on impressive clothing for rushing a sororities (there's a great section on how even though all rushers had to wear the same T-shirts, it's the designer jeans and accessories that really mattered in whether you got called back to the next round) are the women who are much more likely to end up with social networks they find valuable in other ways. Women whose families are supportive but ask critical questions about which majors are more likely to yield a worthwhile career path are also more likely to see college as a good investment.
Mostly, though, what I found fascinating was their study of social isolation. The women who came from lower-class families were much more likely to feel socially isolated. Furthermore, when it became clear they weren't fitting in with the upper-class "party girls," they rarely formed their own social networks among themselves. One particularly compelling account documented a woman who talked about how she constantly tried to portray herself as on the phone -- via real or imaginary conversations -- so as not to seem like a loser with no friends. When the researchers interviewed another woman about her, she said that she was intimidated by this woman and didn't think they could possibly be friends because she was already so popular. Honestly, this research brought back some (not so great) memories about my freshman year of college, and the the extreme social disruption you feel that first year as a freshman.
This book is a great attempt at trying to map out the complex social structures of college. They point to the fact that Greek life is actually a huge problem and cements the existing class structures in terrible ways. The authors actually suggest eliminating it, and point out that as universities have fewer resources, they look to Greek organizations to share some of the burden of housing and social organizing. This is actually bad for the way the universities are structured, but unless the universities have an alternative, it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
There's obviously more work to be done on the social aspects of college, but I found this to be a fascinating look, if not a completely gripping narrative read (though there's probably enough material in their research to produce several good novels).
June 15, 2025
Author Elizabeth Armstrong takes on the party schools and the role of fraternities and sororities within them. This book draws upon a five-year ethnographic study of how these organizations impacted their odds of success, and how that impact depended on the social position of the women who entered.
Armstrong describes three pathways through college. A professional path that benefited high-achieving, affluent students; a mobility pathway allows lower-middle-class and working-class students to climb into middle-class professions that had more limited opportunities; and a party pathway centered on social networking and "Greek" life. This last path tends to benefit upper-middle- and upper-class students who already have the social capital to navigate and profit from the system, while reducing the chances of success for students without those advantages.
The exposé presents a scathing critique of elite universities and party schools that benefit from the draw of the party system while underinvesting in education and resources that would provide broader support aimed at student success. Armstrong exposes the institutional complicity in maintaining inequality. She shows how universities benefit from their investments in the party system, how they institutionalize class privilege rather than just reflecting it.
The author makes it clear that not every university is complicit, and that many smaller institutions and non-flagship schools, which are less entrenched in maintaining the party pathway, put more resources into their mobility pathway. So, if you've ever had that itching feeling that somehow, something was amiss with resource allocation at your school, this book might shed light on why and leave you feeling a little less gaslighted.
Armstrong describes three pathways through college. A professional path that benefited high-achieving, affluent students; a mobility pathway allows lower-middle-class and working-class students to climb into middle-class professions that had more limited opportunities; and a party pathway centered on social networking and "Greek" life. This last path tends to benefit upper-middle- and upper-class students who already have the social capital to navigate and profit from the system, while reducing the chances of success for students without those advantages.
The exposé presents a scathing critique of elite universities and party schools that benefit from the draw of the party system while underinvesting in education and resources that would provide broader support aimed at student success. Armstrong exposes the institutional complicity in maintaining inequality. She shows how universities benefit from their investments in the party system, how they institutionalize class privilege rather than just reflecting it.
The author makes it clear that not every university is complicit, and that many smaller institutions and non-flagship schools, which are less entrenched in maintaining the party pathway, put more resources into their mobility pathway. So, if you've ever had that itching feeling that somehow, something was amiss with resource allocation at your school, this book might shed light on why and leave you feeling a little less gaslighted.
April 15, 2023
The book is an interesting and easy narrative to follow, not loaded with academic jargon. However, I felt like I was reading the script for a cliche movie plot, where the sorority girls are the bad people in the story. The authors came off as very judgemental of the sorority girls, mentioning multiple times how easy they have it because they don't have to work hard at school. The authors also sounded judgmental in regard to professions. It sounded like they placed more value on the typical prestigious or science fields while dismissing communication studies and fashion and such as easy. Even when recounting the jobs of the sorority girls after college the authors failed to recognize that having charisma, being able to connect to people and build a network, takes a certain skill set as well.
July 30, 2013
This book is a great addition to the genre of works on whether or not higher education is serving all students to the best of our ability. I appreciated the focus on women in particular, and how the social life of college can dominate their attention to the point where it might even hijack an otherwise successful plan. Like Academically Adrift, this study contends that those students who are most at risk entering college are likely to leave it in a similarly precarious socioeconomic position. Even though the research was conducted at a state flagship institution, there is a lot in the book for those of us at other kinds of institutions as well.
June 30, 2016
What a devastating book! The book's authors follow 53 women from the same freshman dorm at a large public university for five years. It describes their experiences, and their academic, social, economic, and romantic outcomes. While I went to a small private liberal arts college and my sisters went to a larger private university, I see many parallels in our varied experiences with these women's'. The authors contend that the outcomes can be attributed to the "party pathway" at this specific public university, but this book left me concerned about the state of higher education more broadly. I think this is an important read to understand how college can maintain inequality.
May 30, 2018
It's nice to have some close-up recording of the daily life of different girls in college. But the fact that the authors draw serious conclusions based on such a small group raises my eyebrows so many times during the reading. Sometimes, a whole chapter petted on a striver, what they call a low-income college student, on her social isolation, drop-out, etc, and then basically concluded that all because she is not as rich as others. This kind of information is depressing and unhelpful to the readers.
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