Theoretical Frame: Academically Adrift

 This is a concept that has been discussed in a previous literary review, but it bears repeating since it is so important to my paper. This term, taken from the book Academically Adrift : Limited Learning on College, defines students from our current generation that enter college with high aspirations for success, but lacking any clear direction for how to achieve those goals. These students arose during the age of privatized college, where students were more encouraged than ever to attain a degree despite their financial situation. A lack of educational guidance in high school has also left many students without the proper "cultural capital" to navigate through the successful paths through college.

The academically adrift generation intersects with the concept of the college pathways dicussed in Armstrong and Hamilton's book 'Paying for the Party.' Increasingly, students from lower-socioeconomic families fall into the appealing "party pathway," option, where they are encouraged to engage in social events and eschew harder classes. This option is usually only accessible to students from more affluent families, since they can use these social gatherings as networking opportunities to maintain their social status. Lower-class students, meanwhile, often don't meet their academic expectations, and leave college with little to no professional skills.

Anxieties about an individual's academic future is one of the main reasons why students drop out or take a leave of absence from college. To combat this issue, students should be given more financial counseling so they are not overwhelmed by tuition fees, and be given more information about what courses to take in college
 
Citations:

Armstrong, Elizabeth, and Laura Hamilton.  Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.  Harvard UP, 2013.

Arum, Richard, and Josipa Roksa. Academically Adrift : Limited Learning on College Campuses. University of Chicago Press, 2011.

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