Research
American colleges and universities make great promises of economic and social mobility but consistently fail to deliver on them, leaving thousands of low-income, first-generation (LIFG) students in debt and without a degree.
These students, for whom higher education holds the greatest promise of social and economic mobility, deserve better.
Becca S. Bassett earned her Ph.D. in Education at Harvard University in 2022 and completed her dissertation as a Radcliffe Fellow during the 21-22 academic year. Her research combines sociocultural and organizational approaches to explore how American universities can design and implement programmatic, academic, and organizational changes to ensure first-generation, low-income students thrive and succeed at equal rates as their continuing-generation, higher-income peers. She is currently writing a comparative ethnography of two Hispanic Serving Institutions that achieve unusually high rates of success with their low-income, first-generation students. Becca's scholarship has been published in top journals of higher education including The Journal of Higher Education and The Journal of College Student Development.
Book Project
Equity in the Balance: The Precarious Position of America's Mobility-Generating Universities
In rich ethnographic detail, Equity in the Balance takes readers into the classrooms, financial aid offices, and leadership meetings of two Hispanic Serving Institutions that achieve extraordinary outcomes with their low-income and first-generation students. By distilling the common strategies employed at two very different “LIFG Success Institutions,” Equity in the Balancereveals how faculty, staff, and administrators can adapt their everyday work to reduce the role that social class plays in determining college success. But Equity in the Balance also reveals that this endeavor is fraught with conflict and contradiction. Despite their success in graduating LIFG students, both universities face external and internal pressures that threaten their missions and survival. Overtime, sustaining an equity commitment has required significant compromises, yielding frustration and accusations of mission drift. By following each university before and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the book offers a timely and nuanced analysis of the power and precarity of mobility-generating universities in the United States.
Publications
Bassett, B.S. (under review). “Do You Know How to Ask for an Incomplete?:” Reconceptualizing Low-Income, First-Generation College Student Success Through a Resource Acquisition Lens.
Bassett, B.S. (2021). Big Enough to Bother Them?: When Low-Income, First-Generation Students Seek Help from Support Programs. The Journal of College Student Development. 62(1), 19-36. Link
Bassett, B.S. & Geron, T. (2020). “Youth Voices in Education Research.” Harvard Educational Review. 90(2), 165-171. Link
Bassett, B.S. (2020). Better Positioned to Teach the Rules than to Change Them: University Actors in Two Low-Income, First-Generation Student Support Programs. The Journal of Higher Education. 91(3), 353-377. Link
Public Writing & Interviews
Creating a Culture of Success-- For All College Students. (Jan 3 2022) The Harvard Gazette. Link
Bassett, B.S. (2021). To Reduce Inequality on College Campuses, Invest in Relationships. Inside Higher Ed. Nov 1. Link
Bassett, B.S. (2021) Review of "A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum" by Jessica Calarco. Harvard Educational Review. 91(1), 138-141.
Bassett, B.S. (2020). Review of "Campus Counter Spaces: Black and Latinx Students' Search for Belonging at Historically White Universities" by Micere Keels. Harvard Educational Review. 90(4), 667-671.
Bassett, B.S. (2019). Review of "The Educated Underclass" by Gary Roth and "The Adjunct Underclass" by Herb Childress. Harvard Educational Review. 89 (4), 695-699.