Paying for the Party

Elizabeth A. Armstrong

Laura T. Hamilton

“Armstrong and Hamilton report the results of their five‐year study of a group of young women who began in the same freshman dorm but ended up in very different situations. The constraints of social and economic class remained formidable, and moving into the professional class seemed virtually impossible, especially for those women who followed what the authors call ‘the party pathway.’ Women from more privileged backgrounds survived their partying through school due to their more substantial support systems at home. We also see how difficult the college adjustment was for less talented students and for women from modest backgrounds and small towns… The conclusions are sobering, if not depressing. Armstrong and Hamilton assail the university itself for a number of failures, including an ineffectual system of student advising; a plethora of meaningless majors and courses designed to attract full‐paying students, many of whom have no intention of actually pursuing such a career; and its continuing support for the fraternity/sorority system, which the authors contend undermines the very academic mission of the university. Athletics take some major blame, as well. The authors also discovered that some of the women who transferred to regional campuses performed better and were happier.”—Kirkus Reviews

“With astute observations and insights, Paying for the Party sheds new light on the lived experiences of contemporary students. It is a very important piece of scholarship that will inform the national discourse on the current state of U.S. higher education.”—Richard Arum, author of Academically Adrift

“By focusing on the lives of young women who spent freshman year living on a ‘party floor,’ Armstrong and Hamilton help us understand critical issues facing American higher education, including the out-sized role of sororities and fraternities and how the values of affluent students coincide with the interests of universities to empower the ‘party pathway.’ Richly observed and vividly narrated, this is an important ethnography of American campus life.”—Steven Brint, University of California, Riverside

“In this bold book, Armstrong and Hamilton capture the strikingly different pathways women undergraduates can take through public universities—‘party,’ ‘professional,’ or ‘mobility’—and show how the dominant campus culture indulges the upper-middle class and limits the prospect of the upwardly mobile. The authors show the complex connections between parental resources, sociability, educational outcome, post-graduation lives, and the importance of the right brand of shoes. This book illuminates the realities of the college experience today, when an adult life without crushing debt is fast becoming the privilege of the few.”—Michèle Lamont, author of How Professors Think

“Paying for the Party is very provocative and should be read by every dean of students on every residential campus. At a time when women are making rapid progress in educational attainment compared to men, Armstrong and Hamilton show how young women’s academics, social lives, and labor-market opportunities get aligned in college—and what happens when they do not.”—Mitchell Stevens, author of Creating a Class

Related Links

• At the Time Magazine blog Ideas, read more about the “party pathway” described by Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton
• Read about one surprising finding from Armstrong and Hamilton’s research—that financial support from parents may act as a “moral hazard” for their children, leading to lower college grades—at Inside Higher Ed, Forbes, and the New York Times
• Read more about the research presented in Paying for the Party in The Atlantic
• In the Chronicle Review, read Armstrong and Hamilton’s argument that economic trends lure colleges to cater to the social and educational needs of affluent students—at the expense of others
• View more HUP titles on Higher Education