My daughter lived in the more expensive dorm, but so did 90% of freshmen ( it is a freshman village). She could have saved $1000 per semester by living in the old, traditional dorm with a shared room and a shared bath but it was an additional expense that I thought was worth it for her to live with her teammates and the other freshmen. If it would have meant the difference between her going to college or not going, she would have lived in the shared dorm.
@ucbalumnus, just a little nit: PSU isn’t in the Midwest (or South).
@CHD2013
As with most people here (given the lack of specific data-driven sources for assertions made), my experience is a mix of my own and that of others I know in relevant situations. Since anecdotal evidence is decidedly less meaningful than more data-driven approaches, it’s reasonable to expect that two people may have very contradictory stories, or even more likely that they interpret similar events in different ways. Beyond that, I’d rather not go too much into my own background because I’ve noticed that discussions about specific backgrounds on CC tend to detract from the specific message. I’ve seen more than enough variations on, “you’re not from background X (Ivy, State U, URM, etc.) so you’re not qualified to talk about Y,” that serve mostly to derail the discussion, to be wary of that line of argument.
On your specific point about professors, I will say that perhaps the context of the discussion may have led to a stronger statement than was intended. The way you posted it, in contrast to my point about rich kids having more opportunities for networking, the implication seemed to be that professors are the paragon of egalitarian (and meritocratic) virtue that serve as a great equalizer. Well, that much really just isn’t true. From all the professors I know (I’ve had plenty both as teachers and as friends), I would say that they are definitely just people. People with their own set of biases and circumstances, and their own favorite students who they offer the most help to. Add the fact that tenured professors generally represent the winners of the academia game (PhD recipients who achieved a tenured professorship) and you’ll find a skew towards academic pedigree (which plays an important role in them getting to where they are). I don’t really think that’s controversial, though I do see how you may have interpreted that as a stronger statement than it was meant to be.
On the other part of your point, I responded that you were wrong to this:
That’s an unjustified assertion (“I think it’s this way”) that is very strongly in contrast to what I’ve seen. As I mentioned, most people don’t see themselves as classist and quite a large fraction of them don’t even want to be. However, there’s a culture associated with being highly ranked on the socioeconomic ladder (w.r.t. money, social norms, general outlook on life, etc.) that has a *tendency/i that often serves to impede the success of the more socioeconomically underprivileged in networking and in finding good jobs. And perhaps, that has something to do with the article and what point it is either trying to make or trying to undermine.
As a small aside, I would like to offer [this wiki link](Survivorship bias - Wikipedia) to the people in this thread. I’ve seen a fair few arguments along the lines of, “it worked for me so it must work in general” and I think that some of that is, in fact, survivorship bias. I’ve definitely had a fair few occurrences in life where, if circumstances were slightly different, my success in what I was doing would be significantly better or worse. And it’s not hard to imagine that if you “beat the odds” that someone else (or most others in the same situation) would not.
But PSU would be equally at home in the Midwest or the South. Except for the accent. Much more in common than not.
@CCTC no violation if its for education
@MiamiDAP the poor kids are told that only the rich suceed and that only smart kids do well. It seem logical that when you’re told that successful and smart people go to high end schools you would want to attend. The students also might receive pressure from family and counselors who push the student to go to a high end school instead of an average school because " they are better than that" and have “potential”
“But PSU would be equally at home in the Midwest or the South. Except for the accent. Much more in common than not.”
I agree – I consider it a Midwestern school. (I also consider Pittsburgh and Buffalo to be Midwestern cities, though I wouldn’t argue about it if people there don’t feel that way.)
I wasn’t implying that it is. Yale charges for laundry, I toured state schools that don’t. I was sharing my personal experience comparing one Ivy to one LAC.
@Hanna ,Well I’m originally from Pittsburgh and still return regularly and it is not Midwestern. It is part of the mid-Atlantic region of the Northeast. PSU is not Midwestern either.
When we drove from Atlanta to Omaha a few years ago on an epic road trip, we were surprised that Arkansas and Missouri considered themselves to be southern. It felt and looked nothing like NC, SC, GA, AL, TN, & MI, and there were no southern accents to be found.
Chicago and Pittsburgh seem to have their own unique cultural identity separate from where they are geographically.
^^Oops, not Michigan. Mississippi. My bad!
Depends on where in MO. The southern third is culturally like TN, KY, and AR and the Missouri Ruver valley was settled by people going down the Ohio River from KY and VA. The northern tier by IA isn’t southern at all.
BTW, @MotherOfDragons, the South has all sorts of distinctive accents (and cultures and cuisines), so just because folks don’t sound like you doesn’t make them not Southern. Texas BBQ isn’t anything like Carolina BBQ (nor are the Ozarks and TX accents anything like the SC accent) but they’re still all Southern.
Chicago is very Midwestern. Pittsburgh and Buffalo have commonalities with other Great Lakes/Rust Belt cities, but they’re not Midwestern.
I live in Atlanta, @PurpleTitan , went to school in Pittsburgh, grew up in New England, and lived in Florida, so I’m fairly familiar with a lot of the cultures.
Of course there are differences (my kids are native Georgians but have the Atlanta accent which sounds more like a California accent), but it did not feel southern to me at all when I was in Missouri and Arkansas.
As to the “folks don’t sound like you” comment-when I get tired, my Boston accent comes back and I start dropping all of my r’s. So yeah, I’m not a country bumpkin as you suggest.
My personal observations BASED on the fact that I’ve lived all over the world is that some places which claim to be culturally Southern do not appear so to me.
I also speak Italian with a Milanese accent, btw. Talk about regional differences-Italy blows the US away…
OMG I apologize to everyone else for the egregious thread-spread.
I think that people from the eastern Backcountry (WV, KY, TN, as well as the southern tiers of OH, IN, and IL) find the Ozarks (as well as OK) to be culturally the same as where they’re from.
Here in Ohio we like to say that Cleveland is a northeastern city, Columbus is in the midwest and Cincinnati is in the south 
^ That’s true to a large degree.
The Western Reserve was originally settled by CT Yankees while southern OH was originally populated by Virginians moving west across the Ohio.
struggling teens: stuck in a dead-end town like Gary, Indiana; graduated HS reading at a 7th grade level, works at Burger King, part-time student at local community college.
“struggling” teens in WaPo: Ivy students in Manhattan with $240K-260K aid packages who can’t get a morning latte.
I would also like to mention that $250k in aid to go to a pricey private school is about equivalent to being given a high-end yacht for a month, which someone might be expected to pay $250k in rent for. It’s a luxury for those who don’t have money for luxuries, and they would be much better off if they had a fraction of that money in actual cash rather than a waiver on the price of an obscenely overpriced luxury.
@NeoDymium, not sure about you, but I learned a heck of a lot more and received more opportunities in my 4 years at an Ivy-equivalent than I would have spending a month on a yacht.
So an Ivy education is as frivolous an expenditure as a $250,000 yacht? Please.
Besides that craziness it’s arguable whether Ivies are actually “obscenely overpriced” as you put it, but I hardly think you can argue that throwing a couple grand at someone is better than giving them a free, top notch education.