That’s the whole point of the book: at Indiana at least, that sounds like a good idea but in practice, there are all sorts of institutional barriers that prevent the student from realizing the plan. Savvy parents who do a lot of monitoring and intervene when necessary help students get around the barriers, but our hypothetical student doesn’t have those savvy parents.
Paying for the Party followed a bunch of freshmen women in a “party dorm.” The women were of all classes, but the upper class and upper middle class women chose to be in the party dorm knowing it was a party dorm, whereas the lower middle and working class women ended up in the party dorm by chance. This is just one example where parents and social contacts help students navigate college. Other upper class and upper middle class parents of incoming Indiana freshmen, who didn’t want their kids in party dorms, would network (here at CC, for example, or with other parents at their kids’ schools) and be ready to direct their kids’ dorm choices, just one of the myriad interventions they would do to keep their kids on track. But the working class parents with kids in bad schools wouldn’t have those contacts.