Education Commons^™

The Neoliberalization Of Higher Education: Paradoxing Students' Basic Needs At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Megan A.K. Schraedley, J. Jacob Jenkins, Molly Irelan, Megan Umana

Communication and Media Faculty Publications

Millions of college students in the United States lack access to adequate food, housing, and other basic human needs. These insecurities have only been exacerbated in recent decades by the country's neoliberal approach to higher education, with disproportionately negative consequences for historically underserved populations (e.g., racial/ethnic minorities, low-income students, and first-generation college students). For each of these reasons, this study explores the organizational paradoxes faced by students attending a public, 4-year Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) in southern California. Drawing upon 30 semi-structured interviews with undergraduates who self-identified as historically underserved, our three-stage conceptualization of data analysis revealed three specific paradoxes: (1) …