The schools could start giving the full COA to these students like the Power 5 conferences (and some others) do with athletes now, but that wouldnt stop the students from sending the money home and still not having enough for food or books.
@bluebayou My point is, they can choose to either be with people of a similar economic background. These articles makes it seem like its 1/1000 students is poor. Meanwhile there are 100-149 other kids in that same 1000 that fit your situation.
There is no ostracizing of these poor kids, they are not shunned, they make up a significant chunk of the school.
I may be dense, but I fail to feel the sympathy that this article seems to be trying to generate. It sounds to me like a suggestion that the college experience should be easy. And as someone who worked 60-70 hour weeks during summers (1 job) and 35 hour weeks (2 jobs) during the school year to make college possible, I’m just not feeling any sympathy for students who have a $240,000 education covered.
yeah, I get your point, but I’m not convinced. If your class assignment is a team of all 1 per centers, you cannot “choose” to study otherwise.
Again, that is not the point and nobody is saying that it is.
Here’s a slightly different perspective to consider: a lot of the people who are poor off can’t go to college right out of high school. Even the smartest ones might just have to go to work for a while if their parents are struggling to make ends meet, or if they don’t have a stable family situation (divorce, death, sickness in the family, etc). A lot of them probably won’t get to go to college anyways, although that’s a problem for public policy more than for Harvard. However, the ones that do go to college will probably only be able to do so later in life, when they might have a spouse and children. Not a great situation to live in dorms with children when you are 5-15 years older, nor to depend on the aid of the university to even have a place to live.
Situations focused on the youth are inherently socially stratified. It’s generally the wealthy who are best able to “do everything right” and get the best outcome after college. The ability to do things later in life is a necessity for the poor to be able to catch up. Doing the same thing 5 years later is no huge disadvantage, but having opportunities closed to you because you are 5 years too old is a very big disadvantage.
@bluebayou so you agree with me on that. However, that is how they perceive the school.
We know that they aren’t unwelcome, though they feel it.
It has nothing to do with their state of wealth, it has to do with mindset.
There is a huge difference between “I don’t belong here, I’m too poor” and “I worked my a$$ off to get here and get an education paid for”
A lot of it boils down to self worth, if you don’t value yourself that has nothing to do with money, money comes and goes but who you are won’t change.
“The ability to do things later in life is a necessity for the poor to be able to catch up.”- Huge assumptions are here. We were not poor because we both worked. I was going to school until I turned 40. I was also working full time and taking care of my husband and S. There is nothing wrong with doing that. School was a great fun as far as I remember. When our S. started college, both of us were still going to school and we never quit working. BTW, employers were paying for both of our college education so we decided to go all the way thru MBA, basically for fun and because of “why not?”. Neither of us needed the MBA at all. We did not consider ourselves poor and I do not think that we were poor as we were paying a full price for our S’s college education.
@blossom wrote
That’s not at all what I mean by networking. Networking is when you can ask your friend if his dad can get you an interview at the company he works for.
If you don’t get to eat in the social club where said kid of dad eats, and you only see him during class, and you never get a chance to socialize with him because his social group is in Gstaad for spring break, then you’re never going to develop the relationship with him where you can ask for that opportunity.
No, you’re reading that wrong. I’m steering them away from colleges where they won’t have social peers. I don’t want them to be the dumbest or the poorest at college. It’s not a pleasant feeling to be in either of those situations. You want to feel successful at school and you want to connect with people you can relate to. Rich people are not our tribe. They’re not a better tribe or a worse tribe, but they’re not our tribe. I’m friendly with some seriously rich people, but the overlap of our life and their life is tttteeeeeeny, and both sides like it that way.
I find no benefit to taking a kid who is successful at a certain academic level and finds friendship (and love) at a certain level, and then teach them that they need to aspire to be higher than that level because that’s where the better stuff apparently is. It’s like saying what they have and what they do and who they like now isn’t quite good enough. That’s the opposite of life satisfaction and happiness, in my book.
@Eagledad33 wrote
As someone who has worked as hard as you have earlier in my life, what you’re missing is that not everybody is capable of doing what you did. It is extraordinary that you can work that hard and be successful at college, and if nobody told you that (nobody told me that until recently), then I’m telling you right now that your ability to do this and be successful is extraordinary. You are not normal or typical. Because you are not normal or typical, you should not view the rest of the world through your lens of accomplishment.
It’s like Superman telling people that they’re failures for not being able to fly because he doesn’t understand he’s Superman.
@MiamiDAP
I’m really not sure what you’re trying to say. Are you trying to say that it’s not important to be able to go to school under conditions other than starting at 18 years old and going to school full-time? Your example seems to run contrary to that.
@NeoDymium, what faculty do you have experience with and in what ways?
Yes, they do value intellect, drive, a passion for learning (more than academic pedigree), but I fail to see why someone poor can not have those.
@SeniorStruggling But it’s not all in their heads, as you seem to be implying. An increased sense of self worth isn’t going to change the grades of a student struggling because they don’t have access to a textbook and it won’t stop students, who had to purchase the least expensive meal plan, from being hungry. Yes self worth can be a helpful motivator, but it doesn’t matter if the student can’t fully participate in the classroom or is forced to make sacrifices that undermine their health.
@MotherOfDragons, the elite ptivates have a mix of all sorts of socioeconomic classes. As I had mentioned before, some publics may be even more stratified.
@NeoDymium, what doors are closed to you because you are 5 years too old? Unlike in some other countries, many colleges and unis in the US accept adult learners.
Columbia has a whole school for them.
@MotherOfDragons Thanks for the compliment, but I don’t think of myself as extraordinary and certainly not Superman! Full disclosure, my (now) wife got pregnant our 1st year of school so we both chose to work our tails off to support our (earlier than expected) family and our college ambition rather than put school off til later. So I “brought it on myself” and wasn’t necessarily extraordinary. But hard work is something that everyone is capable of in some way and you don’t need to experience Broadway and Starbucks as a college student to be satisfied in college.
And I certainly wouldn’t compare what I said with the equivalent of calling someone else a failure. Or maybe I did call the article a failure, but certainly not the students referenced.
None of which a professor is going to get from a student! Professors don’t care about the economic status of their students and aren’t going to consciously treat Timothy Trustfund differently from Pamela Pell in the classroom or in advising. They aren’t privy to students’ financial arrangements. However, professors at all colleges, from Ivy to CC, make assumptions about the general preparation and life experience of the average student in the class, based on what they’ve encountered in the past. A professor at an elite school may well assume, with some justification, that his students have traveled abroad, for example, or be previously familiar with certain kinds of assignments common in prep schools or competitive suburban AP factories. This is where the student from a poorer background may start to feel uncomfortable in the classroom.
Networking is when your suite mate asks “does anyone want a job at the Metropolitan Opera this summer? My mom is on the board but I hate opera so she asked me to find out if one of my friends is interested”.
This actually happened to one of my kids (who is not an opera fan). That kid ended up with a paid internship at a different cultural organization, arranged by a professor and funded by the university via a fellowship.
I’m still mystified that you wouldn’t want a kid at a university with pockets deep enough to fund kids who want to work at not-for-profits. And am wondering what is so elitist about a university which insists that all Freshman live on campus, and that ALL housing is done by the housing office (i.e. nobody gets to pick a roommate from their HS, like they do at our State U.) This INCREASES the chance of you becoming BFF’s with the son or daughter of the elite, not decreases it. A state U which has differential housing prices, and allows freshman to pick their roommates is maintaining the status quo economically and socially, whether they recognize it or not.
@eagle36: Do you think the article is a ploy to elicit sympathy?
I think the article was written to antagonize and divide. Many of the replies in this thread support my thinking.
@PragmaticMom Assuming you meant to refer to me instead of eagle36; I personally think the article is pretty pointless, but there are certainly portions of it written in a way suggesting they are trying to draw sympathy or at least bring awareness to something.
Seniorstruggling is in high school. He’s stated on other threads that he plays tennis for 5 hours a day and now here states he’s homeschooled. He’s not living alone or in a dorm wondering where his next meal will come from or how to buy a textbook for a chemistry class. He’s accepted by the other tennis players even if he can’t fly to Boca for the weekend, but he has no idea how he will feel when he’s at college and can’t afford to go to the movies with these friends or even to Starbucks. At some point he’ll be asked to be in a friend’s wedding and realize he has to say no because it would cost $1000 to go to Hilton Head for the weekend.
Like dragonmom stated, it’s no fun to be the poorest kid all the time. It’s a great opportunity to go to go to Columbia, but it does have a price even if it is ‘free’, and that’s what the article is trying to get across. Hurray, you got into Yale, but the cost is you can’t go home for thanksgiving, maybe not for Christmas. Some people are okay with that cost, others are not. the article is about the surprise some of these costs are to students once they arrive at school. It may be the cheapest option for college, but still a high price to pay. Althetes dealt with this for years, that they were getting tuition and room and board, but had no money to travel or eat when the dining room was closed. Some had Pell grant money, but many did not. The athletes couldn’t work, so were stuck. Those at the 'meets full needs’schools usually don’t get to keep their pell grants as those reduce the grants. If it is a ‘no loans’ school, the student can take the loans (if US citizens).