Precarity and the Predatory Inclusion of Black Women by For-Profit Colleges

Abstract

Numerous sectors and institutions engage in ‘predatory inclusion’, purporting to satisfy the unmet needs of historically marginalized groups under exploitative terms. However, extant scholarship has yet to robustly examine why they target certain groups. Drawing on Black feminist Marxism, I theorize how predatory inclusion depends on precarity, and I redefine ‘precarity’ as a structural position of vulnerability to violence based on excess responsibilities and the denial of means to meet them – or, ‘alternativelessness’. I convey the usefulness of my definition of precarity and my theorization of the relationship between precarity and predatory inclusion through empirical sections that demonstrate how for-profit colleges (‘for-profits’) prey upon the alternativelessness of Black women, the race-gender demographic group with the highest rates of debt-financed enrollment in for-profits. By examining the training materials for admissions ‘counselors’ at for-profits, I illuminate how for-profits succeed at enrollment growth by manipulating the pain, urgency, and relationality of this precarity. I also reveal how descriptive statistics of Black women’s enrollment and financial need in for-profits correspond to the sector’s predation of precarity. I contend that precarity must be contested for the sake of ending the predatory inclusion of Black women and all others positioned alongside them as ideal prey.