1 This chapter explores social class as an important aspect of identity among college students. An emphasis is placed on how social class and social class identity are included and excluded from the literature, discourse, and practice in student affairs. Understanding Social Class as Identity Georgianna L. Martin, Brittany Williams, Carley Reynolds Young At its inception and for the frst few hundred years of its existence, higher education in the United States was a predominantly white, protestant, upper-class endeavor that a select few people outside of these dominant social identities could enjoy (Hevel, 2016; Thelin, 2004). Today, campuses are among the most diverse they have ever been with regards to an increase in students who are the frst in their families to attend college and students from historically minoritized racial or ethnic backgrounds. Also, there is an increase in college completion by students hailing from low-income so- cioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds or families from a working-class or “lower” classed background. In this chapter, we draw on Liu, Soleck, Hopps, Dunston, and Pickett’s (2004) defnition of social class as the values and be- liefs an individual uses to understand their socioeconomic culture within a broader contextual environment. Some scholars have referred to social class as an often invisible aspect of identity noting that on a college campus it may be harder to distinguish who hails from a given social class background since students are likely to dress similarly, all be living in similar residence hall rooms, eating in the same cafeterias, and attending the same classes (Duffy, 2007; Howard & Levine, 2004; Martin, 2015a). Additionally, other than nuanced social arti- facts such as coveted brand names for clothing, bags, cars, and technological equipment, students do not navigate campus with clear indicators of their social class background; in other words, you typically could not identify an individual’s social class simply by looking at them. Similarly, as a feld, our canon of theories to aid professionals in under- standing college student learning, growth, and development has grown ex- ponentially over the last 30 years to support an increasingly diverse student body (e.g., Evans, Forney, & Guido-DiBrito, 1998; Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton, & Renn, 2009; Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016). However, a glaring omission in our developmental theories, literature, practice, and NEW DIRECTIONS FOR STUDENT SERVICES, no. 162, Summer 2018  2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/ss.20258 9