Breaking Through the Access Barrier: How Academic Capital Formation Can Improve Policy in Higher Education (review)

In a very interesting and informative book, Edward St. John, Shouping Hu, and Amy Fisher look at different educational interventions intended to improve college access for first-generation and/or low-income, working class students. Breaking Through the Access Barrier: How Academic Capital Formation Can Improve Policy in Higher Education focuses on three programs that support socioeconomically disadvantaged students’ entrance into college. Each of the three programs, Gates Millennium Scholars, Twenty-First Century Scholars, and Washington State Achievers, use a combination of interventions including academic support and financial assistance.

It should be noted that the Gates Millennium Scholars program focuses their support on African American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian Pacific Islander American, and Hispanic American students across the country and allows students to attend any college or university along with support for graduate school in the areas of computer science, education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health or science. The Twenty-First Century Scholars program is geared toward low-and moderate-income families in Indiana who attend a public college or university within the state. Finally, the Washington State Achievers program, also funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, targets low income students at 16 Washington state high schools and, similar to the Twenty-First Century Scholars program, supports participants’ attendance at in-state colleges and universities. Noting their interest in these three programs for their “exemplary” status, St. John, Hu, and Fisher focus on how these interventions combine opportunities for ongoing support services for families that promote understanding about the benefits of college and possibilities for funding college beginning earlier than many other precollege programs.

St. John, Hu, and Fisher do a very good job in introducing the concept of Academic Capital Formation (ACF). They developed this new theory by building upon social processes in human capital theory (Becker, 1975), social capital theory (Coleman, 1988), and social reproduction theory (Bourdieu, 1972). Academic Capital Formation is a set of social processes that allows a first-generation college student and, notably, their family to develop new levels of educational attainment and success.

Using quantitative and qualitative methodologies to support their theory development, St. John, Hu, and Fisher expand the definition of academic success beyond degree attainment and professional employment to a definition that includes “a commitment to cross-generational uplift, to enable subsequent generations to have the opportunity to achieve academic and career success” (p. 171). As such, the authors examine six components of academic capital formation: (a) concerns about college costs; (b) social networking; (c) trust; (d) information; (e) cultural capital; and (f) abitual patterns, through an “explicit focus on the academic and civic aspects of the capital formation” (p. 171).

Breaking Through the Access Barrier is a well written, self-proclaimed, textbook that will be valuable in both courses specifically focusing on college access issues as well as more general higher education policy courses. The mixed method approach to understanding current initiatives and possible future policy implications is very valuable. The extensive data, collected from multiple sources, provides a comprehensive look at college access intervention programs, which can help both intended college students and their families. Qualitative data gathered from one-on-one interviews and focus groups with students and parents participating in the Gates Millennium Scholars, Twenty-First Century Scholars, and Washington State Achievers programs are well paired with statistical data on a number of outcomes.

St. John, Hu, and Fisher go beyond sharing the best practices of the exemplar programs and show how different social processes and social-psychological factors are used to improve college access. As such, they find that information about college is more likely to be used when it comes from a source that the intended student and family deem to be “trusted.” Further, St. John, Hu, and Fisher suggest that the college access process does not simply end upon matriculation but should include major selection and perhaps...