Each of these students was a participant in our study of working-class students who use the writing center. They are typical of our interviewees, and they are also typical, in many ways, of the students who visit writing centers across the country. As Beth Boquet (1999) notes, writing centers are arenas in which wider institutional currents become material. In particular, writing centers are places where inequality-unequal access to educational resources-is made manifest. Students like Brandon, Talisha, and Juanita grew up in families and communities where getting a college degree was not the norm and where a college education did not seem entirely necessary. Or at least that was the case in the past, when our students' parents were coming of age. The students we interviewed felt that, anymore, college degrees have become a necessity for anyone who wants to make a decent living, and they were each trying to work toward that goal. But in many ways, working-class students' lives before college have not prepared them for what they encounter on college campuses. And-other side of the same coin-the colleges they attend are not fully prepared for them either. All colleges make implicit assumptions about students-what they need, what they want-but students like our interviewees come with a host of expectations and needs colleges have not fully anticipated.

This article examines how the broader political-educational climat in the United States impacts the presence of writing centers on university campuses as well as the shape(s) those writing centers take Using a representative sample of nearly 400 accredited institutions, th researcher explores the relationship between individualized writin support offered on university campuses and stratification of education opportunities in the U.S. Through an examination of such variable of university structure as enrollment size, sector (public, private, or for-profit), institutional type, and location, the researcher correlates the structure of writing centers to the structure of their surroundin institutions. Ultimately, the essay suggests that universities' differen approaches to supporting student writing are reflective of the larger legislative environment in the U.S. as well as what the universit perceives its role to be in relation to its students.