Who benefits from honors: an empirical analysis of honors and non-honors students' backgrounds, academic attitudes, and behaviors

Supporters of university honors programs argue that these programs benefit the university and entire student body while critics argue that honors programs reproduce socioeconomic and racial privileges. In an attempt to address these issues, researchers used quantitative survey data to compare the background characteristics, behaviors, and attitudes of honors and non-honors students at a medium-sized public university in the Southeast. Findings indicate racial and gender differences between the two groups, but similarities exist in economic backgrounds. The findings also show that honors students differ significantly from their non-honors peers in academic and behavioral measures. The information in the study supports the argument that honors programs bring benefits to the entire educational system rather than simply creating a privileged class of students, and that honors programs are thus worthy of the financial resources that institutions commit to them.