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The decisions to go to college and where are life-altering. Accordingly, college choice theory has been a necessary framework for understanding access and destinations in postsecondary education. The author argues for the need to depart from framing college-going around "choice" and puts forth a timely and context-driven alternative to previous college choice frameworks. In particular, the Iloh Model of College-Going Decisions and Trajectories illuminates the bidirectional relationship among three dimensions (information, time, and opportunity). The paper concludes with new directions for researchers, community members, leaders, and practitioners across the P-20 education pipeline.
tudents are among the most important stakeholders in the higher education ecosystem. How they decide on attending college and why they select a particular college have often been considered by way of college choice theory. But what does it really mean to "choose" a college? And are the frameworks for understanding this phenomenon sufficient? I argue that not only is a departure from college "choice" needed, but a three-dimensional ecological model can help us better understand the complexities, realities, and inequities of the college-going decisions and trajectories of today's students.
College Choice Revisited
In 1987, College and University published what would become one of-if not the most-recognized college choice model. Hossler and Gallagher (1987) provided a three-stage linear model that highlights how high school students are predisposed to go to college, gather (or search) for information about institutions of higher learning, with this culminating in the final stage, in which students make a choice about which college to attend. Other notable frameworks rooted in sociology, psychology, economics, and business have considered elements such as costs and financing; family members' educational background and support; policy; social and cultural capital; academic performance; and P-20 education environments as they relate to their impact on the college choice process (Hearn 1991; McDonough 1997; Niu, Tienda and Cortes 2006; Perna 2006; Stephenson, Heckert and Yerger 2016). While adding to the literature and even revealing the impact of some elements of social contexts on college choice, such frameworks and empirical works lack attention to the interactions of complex contexts and ecosystems and how they inform college-going decisions and trajectories.
With more than 32 years having passed since its initial development, the Hossler and Gallagher (1987) model remains one...