Computational Redlining in Access to College? Exploring the Geodemographic Classification of Student List Products

Karina Salazar

Colleges recruit prospective students by purchasing student lists from the College Board, ACT, and other vendors. Student lists contain the contact information of prospective students who satisfy “search filter” criteria (e.g., test score range, high school GPA, zip code) specified by the college making the purchase, who can then be recruited via mail, email, or targeted social media. Some proprietary search filters use geodemographic classification to categorize the college-going characteristics of high schools and neighborhoods in efforts to help colleges "more efficiently" target prospective students. Grounded in critical data studies that suggest algorithmic products reproduce biases through lack of transparency in inputs and the presumed objectivity of outcomes, this project aims to open the proprietary "black box" of College Board's segment filters to explore how they structure educational opportunity. I develop a classification for US high schools using a nationally representative student sample from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009. Factor and cluster analysis are used to create high school clusters comparable to the College Board’s segment filter. I then apply this school classification to metropolitan areas across the country to explore whether and to what extent such filter products structure college access opportunities along dimensions of race, class, and geography by way of inclusion (versus exclusion) in simulated student list purchases.

About Karina Salazar

Karina Salazar is an Assistant Professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona. Her research analyzes how the enrollment management practices of public universities shape college access for underserved student populations. Using data science methodologies and the Freedom of Information Act as data collection strategies, her current work focuses on exploring university recruiting and marketing behaviors. Salazar is a local Tucsonan and proud graduate of the Sunnyside Unified School District. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Arizona where her dissertation research was funded by the American Educational Research Association.