The Problem with the Prestige Pursuit: The Effects of Striving on Access for Black and Latino Students at Urban-Serving Research Universities

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of prestige seeking on access for Black and Latino students at urban-serving universities, addressing gaps in the literature to raise questions as to the extent to which prestige seeking is detrimental to achieving equity goals. To do so, I used an OLS regression with fixed effects on a panel data set to examine the effects of prestige seeking between 2001–2012 on the proportional enrollments of first-time-in-college Black and Latino students across the same time period. Findings highlight the effects of certain prestige-seeking engagements, which differ for Black and Latino populations.