Class Consciousness and Its Consequences: The Impact of an Elite Education on Mature, Working-Class Women

Abstract

This article presents the findings from a 2-year study to evaluate the impact of an elite private college education on five mature, returning students ( Adas ). The subjects of the study were enrolled in Smith College’s Ada Comstock Program, a program that draws exceptional female students from community colleges across the country and supports them through scholarships in the completion of a 4-year degree. Using open-ended interviews and participant observation, the study seeks to understand in what ways the economically privileged and intellectual environment of Smith College influences the personal ambitions and career goals of individuals who have lived a good part of their lives in vastly different economic and cultural circumstances. The study finds that most participants evolve counter to expectation, choosing to define success, not in terms of social mobility, but rather in terms of capacity to render service. In this sense, the participants in the study come to embody the Jeffersonian ideal for the “gifted poor,” using their scholarship-assisted education to become social change agents and advocates for the disenfranchised.