Creating Cross-Class Connections at Universities

Many people who went to college recall building life-long friendships and personal networks that later contributed to their career success. It turns out, however, that all college students do not share that experience, especially those of modest economic means.

The latest research by Harvard economist Raj Chetty indicates that students from low-income households are less likely than their more affluent peers to make personal connections in college that advance their economic well-being.

In a November 14 speech at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Chetty suggested that universities with diverse student populations will need to be deliberate in their policies and programming to promote “cross-class connectedness” if they are to maximize their potential to contribute to students’ upward economic mobility.

Of course, other studies have shown that affinity networks along race and ethnicity are important to creating a healthy college experience and academic success for students of color. Even as institutions of higher education learn to nurture such networks, they may need to actively promote the reciprocal benefits of engagement across class lines to instigate greater economic mobility.

Chetty’s groundbreaking research published in 2014 used anonymized income tax data over 30 years to track the economic mobility of millions of children. It sparked civic initiatives and policy changes across the country, including in Charlotte, which was ranked dead last out of the 50 largest U.S. cities. Chetty’s invitation to address the city’s civic leadership at UNC Charlotte’s annual Chancellor’s Speaker Series was an opportunity to revisit the implications of those findings nearly a decade later.

He focused his remarks on recent research from his Opportunity Insights think tank that examines the power of social connections to high-income people as a vehicle for climbing out of poverty. One finding, based on an exhaustive examination of Facebook data, found that in places where economic mobility is lowest, people from low-income households – which are disproportionately Black and Latino – are least likely to have friends who are affluent. “It’s the single strongest predictor (of economic mobility) that we or anybody else has identified to date,” he said.

A college education provides an undeniable advantage for people to improve their economic standing. But very few U.S. colleges and universities have managed to produce high levels of access for low-income students while also creating high levels of economic mobility for them, according to Chetty’s research, which looks at the prospects of students from families whose incomes are in the bottom 20% nationally to reach the top 20%.

One reason, Chetty suggests, is that interactions across class do not happen as frequently in college as might be assumed based on the unique proximity that students from different backgrounds have to one another. Part of that is due to policies that might inadvertently discourage such interaction. For instance, housing policies that congregate students who are late to register might tend to isolate students of modest economic means, who may decide relatively late to attend college or take longer to pool needed resources.

However, Chetty said, interactions across class lines are more likely to be impeded by what he called “friending bias”: the reality that “kids tend to befriend kids who are like them in terms of class or in terms of race.”

“It turns out that about half of the social disconnection between low- and high-income people in America is driven by this friending bias rather than a lack of exposure,” he said. Moreover, his research shows, affluent students are more likely to make life-long friends in college than are lower-income students.

This friending bias poses disadvantages both ways. While Chetty’s data show that low-income students will benefit from friendships with peers who are more economically affluent, various studies show that students of more modest means bring assets to campuses from which affluent students could benefit. These include a stronger commitment to serving their communities, a greater emphasis on social justice, and resilience in overcoming societal barriers.

“Even if you managed to perfectly integrate every school, every neighborhood, every college – which would be incredibly difficult to do – you’d still have half of the disconnection left,” Chetty said. “And so, I think it’s equally valuable to think about how you tackle that latter piece.

“How do you actually bring people together even when they’re attending the same school?”