Becoming Real Colleges in the Financialized Era of U.S. Higher Education: The Expansion and Legitimation of For-Profit Colleges Open Access

Cottom, Tressie (2015)

Permanent URL: https://etd.library.emory.edu/concern/etds/9593tv522?locale=en
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Abstract

Are for-profit colleges real colleges? That question animates public debates, in part, because these market-based credentialing organizations account for 30 percent of U.S. higher education expansion in the first decade of the twenty first century. To be a real college is to be a credential granting organization that conforms to collective assumptions of legitimacy. This case study asks if for-profit colleges are real by asking if, and to what extent, they conform to collective accounts of what constitutes a legitimate college. I extend Elsbach's framework of legitimation accounts (1994), or discursive texts produced to justify an organization's rightness. Quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Securities and Exchange Commission filings; marketing and admissions materials; and legal actions find that for-profit colleges produced multiple comparative and justification accounts of their legitimacy for various audiences. But, I conclude that contrary to extant literature, for-profit colleges are not aiming for institutional homogeneity. Because their financialization constrains their investment in symbolic forms of educational legitimacy, for-profit colleges instead aim to manage multiple legitimate accounts as a normative organizational strategy. I include a discussion of the implications for stratification, policy, and theory.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Situating the Problem and Organization Of the Dissertation. 1

Organization of the Dissertation. 2

CHAPTER ONE: SOCIOLOGY OF HIGHER EDUCATION. 13

The U.S. Institutional Field of Higher Education. 14

History of the For-Profit College Sector. 17

The Wall Street Era of For-Profit Colleges. 18

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS AND RESEARCH DESIGN. 26

Legitimation Accounts and Higher Education Sectors. 33

Elites and The Rest of Us: The Making of Higher Education's Ruling Legitimation Account 36

Hypotheses: Legitimation Accounts, Audiences, And Strategies. 39

Research Design. 46

Data Sources. 48

Methods. 51

Summary Findings. 53

CHAPTER THREE: LEGITIMATION ACCOUNTS FOR MARKETS AND REGULATORS. 56

Findings. 57

Accreditation. 58

Extra-Institutional Actors and Legitimacy. 74

Status Groups and Differentiation. 79

Newbies, Working Students and G.I.s: The For-Profit College Status Group. 82

Legitimacy and Labor Market Correspondence. 90

CHAPTER FOUR: LEGITIMATION ACCOUNTS FOR PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS. 102

Findings. 104

The Telephone Call. 104

The Campus Tour. 106

A Calculated Hedge Against Unemployment. 109

Comparative Accounts: "Serious U"s and "Similar U"s. 110

Legitimating Without Promising: Labor Markets and Professional Entry. 113

CHAPTER FIVE: MANAGING MULTIPLE LEGITIMATION ACCOUNTS. 116

CHAPTER SIX: PIECING TOGETHER THE PUZZLE OF FOR-PROFIT COLLEGE EXPANSION. 129

Contributions. 139

Limitations. 140

Future Research. 140

REFERENCES. 141

Appendix A. Meta Analysis of For-Profit College Literature, Theory, Methods, and Data. 155

APPENDIX B. Chapter 3: "Crisis of Legitimacy" Methodology Notes. 169

APPENDIX C. Chapter 4; Courting Legitimacy; Methodology Notes. 173

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