Education Commons^™

Higher Education: Path Or Barrier To Opportunity?, Amanda Jd Simpfenderfer

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Higher education has long been viewed as the pathway to economic and social mobility within the United States and yet institutions have historically restricted access based on race, gender, and social class. This scholarly paper, explores, argues, and presents evidence to demonstrate how the impact of colonialism, neoliberalism, and cultural capital/wealth intersect and have served to mold higher education into a tool of oppression, by limiting access and attainment, to historically underserved and oppressed populations.