How College Works by Daniel F. Chambliss and Christopher G. Takacs (review)

The current era of higher education is marked by the mantra of ‘do more with less’ as institutions continue to face an economic recession and shrinking university budgets. In How College Works, authors Chambliss and Takacs seek to understand how postsecondary institutions can improve the quality of education offered and to provide recommendations for how institutions can utilize the authors’ findings without additional burden to already stretched resources on campus. By employing multiple research methods, the authors gain insight into students’ perspectives on their decision-making process and their most influential moments of college from when the students first step on campus to their final days of graduation. The central finding presented by the authors is that students’ relationships with peers, faculty, and staff define their college experience. At the onset of their book, the authors simplify their argument into a single sentence, “…what really matters in college is who meets whom, and when” (p. 16).

The book is the summation of several studies with multiple data collection methods including interviews, surveys, focus groups, panel studies, and database analyses. The findings within the book encompass over ten years of research analyzed by Chambliss and Takacs, two academic researchers with a background in applied sociology. Together, the authors utilized their networks within their own institution, Hamilton College, to create a case study exploring college outcomes for undergraduate students. Readers may question how the findings could be generalized to the diverse institutions of higher education across the United States; however, the authors attempt to address this issue by weaving in current findings from larger research studies available. The transparency of the authors as they clearly describe their research methods, both within the chapters and in the included appendix, lends credibility to their findings. While the case study method came at the cost of risking generalizability, the authors purposively chose to focus on the depth of student experience using a longitudinal design. Not many researchers are able to utilize a longitudinal design due to time and cost restraints, so the authors’ decision to pursue this design provided a unique panoramic view of the college experience allowing readers to see the culmination of the student experience.

These methods helped the authors to answer two key questions that guide their research and serve as the opening lines for their book: “In an era of fixed or even shrinking resources, can the quality of collegiate education be improved at no additional cost;” and “Can students get more out of college without spending more money?” (p. 17). Through investigating key points of students’ college careers, the authors find being integrated into the community helps set the stage for learning. These initial and growing relationships help serve as a motivator for progress and persistence throughout one’s time in college. Even as alumni, these relationships serve as “the major result of the college experience” (p. 4).

Throughout the eight chapter book, Chambliss and Takacs dissect the impact behind common student experiences that influence what students gain from their time in college. The findings are presented in a chronological time frame based on the decisive moments during one’s college career. The first three chapters focus on student experiences. These chapters include an overview of the book, followed by a chapter entitled “Entering” for when students begin college and “Choosing” as students narrow down to their major and intended career. The next chapter, “The arithmetic of engagement” takes a more administrative view on how organizational structure can influence student involvement. Following the description of entry into college, the authors explore students’ persistence. In chapter five “Belonging,” the authors explore factors outside the classroom that contribute to a student’s fit on campus, while the proceeding chapter, “Learning” focuses on students’ academic course work. Finally, the authors conclude the student experience with a chapter entitled “Finishing,” which focuses on students’ senior year and transition from student to alumni. This organization helps readers to understand the experience of students as they progress, as...