I guess my confusion is, for how many is this really a surprise? I mean the ones getting into Ivy schools are going to be some of the smartest students in the nation and they can’t figure out that a full ride doesn’t include things like discretionary travel, Broadway tickets, and Starbucks?
Most people aren’t very explicit about classism because it’s not socially acceptable to be a jerk to people because they’re poor. Rich kids don’t do this either, at least not most of the time. It’s a very subtle effect, that is more of a tendency than a general rule, that ends up disproportionately affecting the poorer individuals.
If they feel crappy because rich classmates get cappuccinos at will and go on exotic winter breaks, I’d hate to see the breakdown they have when those classmates get a $800K Brooklyn apartment after graduation – or when a rich grandpa or parent passes away and the college peer inherits millions of dollars, a real estate portfolio, car collection, etc.
And how many kids at public U’s can’t afford to go home for Christmas or Thanksgiving? Lots of them.
I will try to find the article which described the gulf between the haves and have-nots at various flagship public U’s. And the wonderful quotes by professors who walk past the student parking lot filled with high end cars (because every kid needs his own car at college) to get to the faculty parking lot filled with banged up Honda’s and Toyota’s.
Do you seriously think this is not a bigger problem at the taxpayer funded U’s where the nice dorms cost more than the cruddy dorms and the social stratification begins in May before college even begins when kids send in housing deposits and request to room with their BFF?
However, about 50% of the students are no-financial-aid students – presumably top 2-3% income/wealth students (probably $200,000 per year and up). Then, if Pell grant students (i.e. from below median income families) are 15%, that means that 35% are from above median income families but receive financial aid. I.e. a student population very skewed toward wealth.
Certainly, the issue of social groups going to unaffordable social activities is not an insurmountable problem. But it is not necessarily a non-problem either. It also depends on the specific students in question. Indeed, some students from poor families learned about this type of thing in high school if they attended a high school that was not mostly made of students from poor families. Some may have seen their spendy wealthy classmates as business opportunities. But it may be more of a shock to those for whom college is the first time they are surrounded by wealth and the tendency to spend freely.
A lot of positions are very strongly a young man’s game. Competitive college admissions for one - it’s much harder to get into and fit into the culture of a top school which is generally 18-22 year olds (or for grad/professional schools, the appropriate age bracket) almost exclusively. Finance jobs are another, as they generally require you to “check off all the right boxes” and do exactly what you have to from high school through the years following college. Same with some prestigious legal positions, raising capital in Silicon Valley for a startup, getting into a specific PhD program of your choosing, etc. A lot of opportunities do close to people because you didn’t reach them at the proper age.
US is better at it than some countries, certainly. It’s worse at it than others too.
Based on financial aid and Pell grant numbers, the elite privates’ students are very skewed toward wealthy backgrounds.
It is true that some well known publics (e.g. Michigan and Virginia) enroll a very slow percentage of students on Pell grants, indicating that their students are also very skewed away from lower and lower middle income backgrounds.
Obviously, this does not make such schools necessarily undesirable for those from lower income backgrounds. But it does mean having to be ready to handle the social dynamics when it comes to spending money. Some students from low income backgrounds presumably handle it better than others. Some students from high income backgrounds also presumably handle it better than others.
I think there is a bit too much “when giants walked the earth” nostalgia in this thread, as well as bit of “are there no workhouses?” I commend schools that try to provide a full college experience to all students, regardless of wealth. I don’t think anybody is advocating free trips to Gstaad, but I think it would be great if a college would think about how to provide textbooks to kids who can’t afford to buy them.
I don’t this would be the case at many highly selective schools, since there are people from all income levels. That’s certainly the case at Yale. There are some really rich people, and sometimes they annoyingly do things that other people can’t do (like rent a hotel room so they don’t always have to sleep in the dorm room, believe it or not). But most people don’t do that stuff, and lots of things (like tours by musical groups) are subsidized for kids who can’t pay. (Actually, they tend to be substantially subsidized for everybody.)
I was shocked to meet wealthy people when I got to college. I got my first invitation for winter break from someone in my dorm whose family owned a vacation property on an island somewhere. The friend made it clear when inviting me that my only costs would be airfare- her family’s driver would pick me up at the airport and everything else would be on them.
Of course I turned it down- I still laugh at the idea of telling my parents that I was going to an island on break (I went home and worked shifts at the restaurant I had worked at in HS). But guess what- I recovered from my shock.
UCB- do you really think these kind of social interactions are problematic?
@twoinanddone Yeah, that’s exactly where I am at with my friends. I can’t go to tournaments across the country with them or spend 8 weeks in boca raton at an academy. I am not nearly in the same boat anymore as those people, but that’s thanks to my mom.
In my early years playing tennis I was the charity case at an academy training 20 hours during the week for free as a 3rd grader. All my friends parents drove bmw’s and went out to eat at exclusive restaurants. Big difference between being a charity case at a tennis academy with some of your cities most rich families. I still made friends with them.
There is one memory I remember from middle school. I have a friend who’s parents make millions every year, he invited me to a restaurant that requires membership and to achieve membership you must be invited by a current member. Membership is like 15,000 annually. I told him I couldn’t afford to go there($100 a meal easily) and he said “I realize your family doesn’t make as much money as mine, but I’d rather be able to have you accompany me and take care of the bill than to go alone, or not at all.” Basically, he understood my financial situation, I wasn’t ashamed of it, I just knew my limits and that was one of them. Good friends do those sorts of things, I did not feel like I was ever treated any differently because of my background.
There was also another instance with the same friend, he asked me to play a tournament at a resort with him, I agreed and my mom and I were planning on driving 2 hours back each day because the hotels were too expensive. He and his family welcomed me into their other home(go figure, Matthew Mccaunahey(idk how to spell it) lives next door) and I stayed with them.
I learned a lot about life from this friend. While you can definitely receive a lot when you don’t have money, you can also give back a lot. I helped mellow him out and be more down to earth and he helped me out with little things like that. I gave him a more normal life and a better understanding outside of his socio economic bubble. Meanwhile, I never felt out of place around him or the other people at my academy who could afford random weekends to paris and month long vacations.
In the end we are still really close, he goes to the best private school in my city and I go to a free homeschool option. Doesn’t make a difference what our background is, and the same will go in college.
“Do you seriously think this is not a bigger problem at the taxpayer funded U’s”
Oh, it’s definitely a bigger problem at most flagships than at the Ivies and their peers. But it’s still worth examining what goes on at Ivies.
@blossom, I too had to work every single break so that I could meet my expenses.
I would have rather not been invited than to know that if only I could afford a plane ticket (and the salary I’d be missing out on), I could go on a luxury paid vacation. Ouch.
Steering kids away from high SES colleges for fear of being isolated indicates you don’t believe the children can adapt to the environment. A savvy lower or middle class student should be able to pick up the vibe and mesh with more affluent peers. I’d argue blending in and the ability to broaden one’s scope and make affluent friends says more about a student’s intelligence than GPA.
NRD- don’t you have this problem all the time in your actual adult life? I do. Friends were renting a place in Aspen, thought we’d enjoy joining them. I thought it sounded fun until I looked at the flights- ouch. Had to decline. Friends won a fabulous trip at a charity auction and decided to make it a group event- above my budget- had to decline. Cousin getting married at a swanky resort in Napa- can’t spare the vacation time at that point in the year, and don’t want to spend the money. Decline.
Do you really go through life NEVER having to say no? I say it all the time- and I don’t think my friends are so affluent either. It’s just that every family has their own priorities, and doing high end “couples” vacations is not one of mine. It doesn’t bother me to get invited- I say no, and ask them to send me pictures which they are happy to do.
I love the Metropolitan museum but have never been to the annual gala. I’m fine with that. I love the symphony but have never attended one of their New Year’s Eve/black tie concerts. I’m fine with that.
“I love the Metropolitan museum but have never been to the annual gala. I’m fine with that.”
Oo, I have to choose not to think about that. If I had a bunch of peers who got to go every year, it would torment me a little bit. Although at least I’d get to hear the gossip about chatting with Helen Mirren in the ladies’ and so on.
I am going to choose to believe that the article is pointing out the challenges lower SES students have at elite universities. Some have a tendency to believe that once accepted that the challenges are over. You can read victim hood into it if you wish, but I think that these students should be applauded for the obstacles they overcome.
On the otherhand if they are complaining about the plight of the poor low SES student with a full ride at elite university then I have little sympathy. Financially they aren’t really dealing with too much that they wouldn’t be dealing with a their local state school with a full ride scholarship. They would still have to deal with the cost of books, food, etc. The difference is that most of the other students would be more likely to be in similar situations. Their lower SES peers who were not able to get full cost financial aid to any universities are having to make far greater sacrifices and face greater financial challenges. They have the real challenges.
The Ivy League schools do include books in the COA which is covered by the financial aid package, but no one is standing over students making them purchase books instead of Starbucks with the money.
I don’t know if it is unique to Williams College, but any student receiving FA(at any level) receives all of their textbooks free. Perhaps other colleges should follow that model rather than providing aid and assuming a student will actually buy books with the funds?
This American Life featured a low income student that was on a full ride at an east coast private. He claimed his financial aid delayed his refund, so he couldn’t buy books at the beginning of the semester. He didn’t know you could use library loan to find text books for free. When he got his refund he still didn’t buy the books.
He ended up getting kicked out of the college for grades, but he showed back up for the winter semester after break because he didn’t think it was real. He was told to leave the property.
@NeoDymium, I don’t think you know as much about the startup tech industry as you seem to think you know.
Same with finance as well, actually. Guys (and yeah, they’re mostly guys; there is arguably sexism there) who are both street smart and went to an elite school are highly valued for a reason.
Amherst does, my kid has an unpaid (non profit org) internship this summer with a grant from the school to pay living expenses. A lot of kids there do. If somehow a student takes an unpaid internship after the deadline to apply for funding or can’t find a paying summer job, one summer of the three they can have their student contribution waived.
My D’s experience also. I’ve met a dozen or so of her closest friends at college and they are everything from very wealthy to middle class to very poor. They relate to each other on a level that has little to do with money.
^ exactly. My kid would have a LOT less opportunity to mix socially at our state flagship (which doesn’t meet need for low income students, not even close) where rich kids rent (or their parents buy them) fancy houses and pay greek org dues and eat wherever they like and go out and join clubs they can afford and all that. There is a great SES divide there, despite the fact that many poor kids attend.
Kids at D’s college hang together in a fairly remote college town where everyone lives together on campus in lottery-determined housing and a full meal plan. The clubbing/eating out a lot issue doesn’t really come up for them. Campus clubs are free, down to rental ski equipment on ski trips with the outing club - for everyone, not just for financial aid kids. I’m sure some are off to the Caribbean or Switzerland for Christmas just as some can’t afford to go home at all. Most kids get on a bus or plane or train and go home> My D took a few live-too-far-to-go-home friends to her relatives apt in NYC for part of spring break. They slept on couches and floor but they were in NYC and darn excited to be there.
D’s college is 25% Pell (and Columbia has even more) so one out of four students is pretty darn poor. 60% on some FA (though many of those have six figure incomes). There are SES peers for everyone.
It closes at 7:30 now. Most kids just grab something to go from the dining hall, fruit or a bagel or whatever, for late night snacks. Or go to one of the many, many club/social/academic events that provide free food (usually pizza) as a draw.
The dorms and dining hall stay open on breaks too. If you happen to be there over Thanksgiving, there’s a dinner at the fancy college-owned inn that anyone on campus for the holiday is invited to. But for all breaks except summer you can stay in your room and eat for free.
I saw an email recently letting students know that if they had income tax due on their grants over QEE they could apply for a grant to pay the tax. A grant was given to the lowest income kids at the beginning of the year to help with buying dorm supplies or winter coats. Grants are available for books and travel if they exceed the estimate in the FA package. There’s funding for summer internships, research, a year abroad.
I think that’s an awesome idea.