Kristan M. Venegas

Finding Money on the Table: Information, Financial Aid, and Access to College.

This article considers trends in state aid and research suggesting that low-income high school students do not prepare for college because they believe it is unaffordable. Authors posit a cultural ecological framework for examining how students think about going to and paying for college, asserting that preparation for college and financial aid is multifaceted and longitudinal.

Social Identity and College Student Experiences in the United States: Introduction to the Issue

The experiences of Latino/as in higher education are more complex and nuanced than can be understood by overgeneralizing about all students of a particular race. As the introduction to a special issue on Latino/as who attend US institutions of higher education, we argue that multiple social identities in conjunction with race frame student experiences. Complicating the notion of a singular student experience, we encourage scholars to explore how different subpopulations of Latino/as experience higher education.

Color and the Academy

Over the last century, one of the more contested issues in academe has been the epistemological battle about the nature of knowledge. Put simply, if truth is absolute and not created, then the standards used to admit students, and hire and promote faculty may be divorced from the identity of the person or the social context in which they operate. Decontextualized, objective criteria may be developed and employed to assess the qualifications of an individual; consequently, ideas such as merit become the cornerstone of academic life. Given this view, whether a student merits admission