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Social Capital, Financial Knowledge, and Hispanic Student College Choices

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Abstract

Hispanic students are significantly over-represented in community colleges compared to White and Black students. This paper uses a powerful but underutilized statistical technique, the Oaxaca decomposition, to explore the impact of social capital, as manifested through college financial information, on Hispanic student enrollment in 4-year and 2-year programs. Background differences between the groups were found to have only a small effect on the gap in attending 4-year schools, while the effect of differential returns to these background characteristics was strong and significant. The analysis revealed that some variables of college financial information contribute significantly to the gap.

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Notes

  1. The term “Hispanic” is used based on the NCES NELS 88:2000 race categories, and refers to individuals of Latin-American origin

  2. In this study, the terms “community colleges” and “2-year schools” will be used interchangeably, referring to associate degree-granting schools which do not grant a Bachelor’s degree

  3. Students had to graduate from an academic program and meet at least one of the following minimal values: GPA = 2.7, SAT = 820, Class rank = 54%, Aptitude test = 56, ACT = 19. The range of student abilities in the sample varies greatly, yet we were able to rule out a unique effect on the Hispanic sample, as the Hispanics in the sample have significantly higher qualification scores than the Blacks in the sample. In other words, Hispanics are not the group with the lowest college qualification scores.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Policy and Leadership Studies, College of Education, University of Iowa, N493 Lindquist Center, Iowa City, IA, 52242-1529, USA

    Noga O’Connor

  2. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions, The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, Suite 310W, Kimball Hall, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    Floyd M. Hammack

  3. Department of Humanities and Social Sciences in the Professions, The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, Suite 318E, Kimball Hall, 246 Greene Street, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    Marc A. Scott

Authors
  1. Noga O’Connor
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  2. Floyd M. Hammack
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Correspondence to Noga O’Connor.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 7 and 8

Table 7 Standard errors for Table 3
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Table 8 Standard errors for Table 5 means used in the Oaxaca Decomposition
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O’Connor, N., Hammack, F.M. & Scott, M.A. Social Capital, Financial Knowledge, and Hispanic Student College Choices. Res High Educ 51, 195–219 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-009-9153-8

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