The Public, the Private, and the Pandemic: Local Solutions and External Constraints to Serving First-Generation, Low-Income College Students During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the barriers that first-generation, low-income (FLI) students faced completing college and tested universities’ ability to provide adequate supports. Drawing on a year of intensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted at two Equity Engines – universities that are both accessible to and effective at serving FLI students – during the 2019–2020 year, I examine how Mission U (small, private) and West State (large, public) attempted to prioritize their FLI students in a context of rising need and exacerbated financial pressures. While both universities harnessed their understanding of and commitment to FLI students to develop similar local supports, their ability to sustain their prioritization of FLI students diverged by sector and business model. By linking campus-level actions to field-level pressures, I demonstrate that FLI students and the institutions that serve them are better protected when higher education is positioned as a matter of public interest (funded by citizens through taxation) than one of private benefit (funded by consumers who pay tuition).