In his 2024 book, Class Dismissed, Boston University Professor Anthony Abraham Jack, PhD ’16, leverages the COVID-19 pandemic as a microscope for campus inequality. He shows how elite universities are often unprepared to support students from economically diverse backgrounds they increasingly value, and offers a pathway to a more equitable future.
What is the “hidden curriculum” in higher education? How does it disadvantage students from lower-income or underrepresented backgrounds?
The hidden curriculum is a system of unwritten rules and unset expectations. So often, we don’t make explicit what something means because we get so used to the shorthand. But the problem is that shorthand has been passed down from generation to generation. It’s not just the people who have been at the same school throughout their entire family lineage, but also those who have had careers in higher education. After all, a recent report in Nature showed that people with PhDs are 12 to 25 times more likely to have a parent with a PhD than the average American.
I write about how office hours are an important part of the college experience. It’s where faculty become advisors and advisors become mentors. We say when office hours are, but we don’t say what they are. In Class Dismissed, I show that the labor market on college campuses is segregated because so many of the high-impact jobs—those that engage the life of the mind like research and teaching— are more likely to be doled out in office hours as compared to being posted online by student employment or career services offices. You have to be in the room to get the position. But you have to be comfortable with the environment to be in the room. That’s why the hidden curriculum is so important to interrogate and make explicit.
How did the COVID-19 pandemic highlight these issues among students at elite institutions?
Doing this research during the pandemic was like watching class inequality unfold and grow under a microscope. When students were sent home, it was an opportunity for us to be invited into places that are usually shielded from view. We got into the homes of both the rich and those who came from lesser means. We got to see how the rich vacation and live because they were posting to Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram. We also got insight into the most savage inequalities as they unfolded in lower-income students’ families and communities. Both are important for us to understand. If there’s one thing I hope the book does, it’s to move us away from ever talking about the “college bubble” again. College is not some kind of impenetrable barrier that keeps problems at bay and gives students a safe haven. If anything, it amplifies many of the inequalities that our most vulnerable students have to contend with even after walking through the college gates.
“Doing this research during the pandemic was like watching class inequality unfold and grow under a microscope.”
– Anthony Abraham Jack
You’ve talked about the “savage inequalities” that came to light during research for Class Dismissed. What were they?
The Citizen app for your smartphone can help you figure out what roads to stay away from when there’s a water main break or a blown streetlight. But August, a student I met, shared how he used the app to see how close trouble is to his home and family, so frequent were the warnings about gunshots, stabbings, and police activity. That’s a savage inequality, and not just because of the stress some students have to deal with while at home or checking up on home while on campus.
But there is a deeper issue. Campus policies ignore place-based inequalities. We see this most acutely in academic leave policies, especially how punitive they are. Think about students from more rural backgrounds. I interviewed some from rural Appalachia and reservations in the Midwest. When they faced mandatory leave, it was usually because the old responsibilities of home were conflicting with their new role as students. So, the school sent them home and told them they had to get a full-time job if they wanted to come back to campus at some point. If you come from a community where mine closures are becoming more and more common or if you’re from a reservation where jobs are scarce, how can you comply with that?
The 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard has changed the landscape of diversity in college admissions. What are your concerns about the future and what can universities do to foster inclusion?
My work shows how universities were increasing access before SFFA while also deepening inequalities because the institutions were not ready for the diversity they were recruiting. Now, in light of the Supreme Court decision, there’s a shift to recruit and admit even more first-generation and lower-income college students for whom they are still not prepared.
My research shows that there are actionable solutions that could not only make our campus accessible but more equitable. Oftentimes, the policies that have the biggest impact on students’ lives come from invisible offices that nobody ever studies. Universities need to conduct an internal investigation, looking at those spaces. Student employment is one. Mental health is another. How students are sorted into each of those makes a big difference. I hope my work inspires universities to answer the question, “Now that we know what we know, what are we going to do about it?”
