Choice is a key part of the culture of the United States. Americans believe deeply in the personal and social usefulness of being able to make many choices. Hence, all sorts of efforts have been made to increase students’ options, whether by creating many different kinds of schools and colleges, offering a great array of majors and degree programs, or allowing multiple modes of attending higher education. However, this proliferation of choices reproduces social inequality in two crucial ways. First, the provision of many options produces social inequality: People often make choices that do not serve their interests as well as they might wish, particularly if they are faced with many options and do not have adequate information. Second, the provision of many choices legitimates social inequality: The more one thinks in terms of choices in the context of a highly individualistic culture such as that of the United States, the easier it is for dominant groups to blame non-dominant groups for creating their own troubles through feckless choices.
This journal article focuses on one particularly important realm of choice—higher education—because it has come to play a central role in the transmission and legitimation of social inequality. Four higher education choices are of particular interest: whether to enter higher education, which college to attend, what major to choose, and what modality to attend college (for example, part time versus full time or in person versus online). Analyzing this choice-making process, the article focuses on the impact of inequitable access to high-quality information. Beyond analyzing how choice proliferation and information inequity join to produce and legitimate educational inequality, the article lays out detailed recommendations for what can be done to reduce this inegalitarian impact.
This article is based on a CCRC working paper, Choice Is Not Always Good: Reducing the Role of Informational Inequality in Producing and Legitimating Higher Education Inequality.