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<p>My spouse and I are called crazy for offering our savvy of the landscape and also our money to provide our working-class nephews with money to attend private schools, test prep and math/reading tutoring. “Why do you care? They’re not your kids.” Why is everyone so cynical? Maybe if more people cared like my spouse and I, poor students would actually have a chance in this world.</p>
<p>I’ve not read anyone in the other thread criticize you for being kind and helping your nephews. </p>
<p>They are just trying to point out that not everyone necessarily is an ACADEMIC success and that it’s important for your younger nephew to discover his passions. </p>
<p>It’s also important not to come across as judgmental that the younger nephew will necessarily be DOOMED if he ends up not meeting some set academic expectations. </p>
<p>There are many ways to earn a comfortable, honest living–sales, real estate, construction, trades, etc. not all of them require college and are paths worthy of your nephew’s consideration. </p>
<p>I don’t read the NYT because of a lot of loonies as I see it writing these extreme opinions, David Brooks and Krugman are in this category. Incite violence as I see it.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m missing something? Can you please provide the link so we can catch up?? Thanks.</p>
<p>Actually in our state, there are a ton of programs in the high schools and even middle schools, to support low income students, especially minorities.
If you really want to help, get involved with tutoring programs in the district, and with kids outside of your own family.
There are certainly more programs available than when I was in high school in the suburbs, when I don’t remember anyone ever asking what my plans were, let alone helping me to make them reality. My family was barely making ends meet, but we did not qualify for any help until my father died when I was 17, then locally funded support for counseling and training opened up. ( but only until I turned 18)</p>
<p>Washington ranks toward the bottom for per student funding, so I expect other states have even more resources.
<a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019849201_needy07treehouse.html”>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019849201_needy07treehouse.html</a>
<a href=“http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/10/21/3925687_public-college-enrollment-up-in.html?rh=1”>http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/10/21/3925687_public-college-enrollment-up-in.html?rh=1</a>
<a href=“http://www.wsac.wa.gov/state-need-grant”>http://www.wsac.wa.gov/state-need-grant</a>
<a href=“http://www.wsac.wa.gov/college-bound”>http://www.wsac.wa.gov/college-bound</a>
<a href=“Postsecondary Success | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”>http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do/US-Program/Postsecondary-Success</a>
<a href=“TRIO Home Page”>http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/index.html</a>
<a href=“Policy Research”>http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/college-preparatory-programs-types-of-programs.aspx</a>
<a href=“http://www.firstgenerationstudent.com”>http://www.firstgenerationstudent.com</a>
<a href=“http://www.collegeaccessnow.org”>http://www.collegeaccessnow.org</a></p>
<p>Yes emkit, there is a huge onslaught of programs that help to pull kids out of poverty with college degrees. Looking around my own city, I’m finding that parents must be on board or at least savvy enough to want the change for their kids. Many of DDs classmates were accepted to schools. But guess what? They were unable to pay because the families thought the EFC per FAFSA was a sure thing. They don’t realize that what FAFSA proclaims and what the school is offering are completely different animals. So they end up at CC feeling dejected because CC was not in their plans. Life gets in the way so they often times will drop out to work, start families etc.</p>
<p>Many low income parents are being led to believe that the FAFSA is all they need to consider when trying to pay for college. When in fact, they should have been looking for schools that would give them scholarship money or need based aid long before senior year. </p>
<p>Low income MUST be very active in this process from day one of high school, maybe sooner. I think leaving it up to GCs and college access programs will continue to provide mediocre results.</p>
<p>Like you, I have been idealistic in wanting to see young people from economically disadvantaged homes succeed. However, in some cases, I have seen that my wanting it wasn’t enough. They had to want it too.</p>
<p>Income is not the only factor in a family that can lead to lack of success. I’ve seen this at all incomes. However, if you add low income to family dysfunction or other issues, that can make it harder for a student to get the financial and emotional support needed to finish college. </p>
<p>In one case, a bright student whose parents didn’t want him to leave home for college ended up going at relatives’ expenses and chose to party and not finish. He is way past college age and still living at home.</p>
<p>An adult I know who was the only one in his family to graduate from college on a scholarship tells me that his family is very cruel and critical of him- saying things like “oh you think you are so much smarter than the rest of us”.</p>
<p>This doesn’t mean we should not encourage as sometimes it is effective. But in these cases it leaves me wondering if the power we have as mentors is a strong as the family unit that wants the young person to be like them, and is subtly, or not so subtly, relaying the message that it is wrong to be different. </p>
<p>Yes, I had a friend who was the first in her extended family to get a college degree. I went with her once to the racetrack after she graduated. She didn’t get any congratulations but got a LOT of flak from everyone about, “Wow, you think you’re better than us now that you have a college degree and are a teacher?” She was the nicest, humblest person and I was taken aback the the direct hostility and open challenges she received, just trying to be a teacher (which she loved and was good at). There is a LOT that she had to fight through. I’m hoping it all worked out for her as we lost touch when I moved on to grad school and she married a military guy instead of her longtime beau who was a hometown farmer.</p>
<p>Nurture…its how you are saying this that I find offensive. You know…you used the word “doomed” then tried to explain it away. You insulted the perspectives of your relatives family. And now you are saying poor people have no chance in the world.</p>
<p>If you continue the attitude, why would your family want your help, regardless of what you perceive as generous.</p>
<p>Offer help, but in my opinion, your endless criticism of those who don’t share your value system is beyond insulting.</p>
<p>Offering to help someone achieve educational goals is a very nice thing. Showing obvious disdain for those that do not have a college education, not so nice.</p>
<p>There is a teaching that the dignity of a person is extremely important. Remembering this can be the difference between butting heads and getting nowhere and a welcoming response and receptivity.</p>
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<p>If you haven’t actually heard them say it, I would not necessarily agree that those are their feelings.
Certainly parents can have a great deal to do with their childs success in school, but the adult college grad may then feel awkward around their relatively uneducated parents, and project what he or she imagines they are thinking.</p>
<p>Of course the reverse may be true as well, our daughter attended a school known for its academically elite atmosphere. But as we could be considered " uneducated", we don’t have any thoughts worth hearing.</p>
<p>Maybe some families want others to quit judging, under the guise of some special wisdom. You did say, “offering our savvy of the landscape and also our money.” </p>
<p>And yes, so many great mentoring programs and the number is growing annually. There are many paths to success. IRL, we should respect when others say, thanks, but we’d prefer you not be involved.</p>
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Oh, puhleeze… It seems like you can’t shake a stick nowadays w/of hearing about colleges giving preference to “first generation” students. The NYT just did an article a few days ago about a poor orphan boy from Rwanda who went from scavenging food in the trash to full scholarship at Harvard.</p>
<p>That aside, the truth is not everyone needs college or is cut out to go to college. Too many unsuited kids are being channeled willy nilly into college and dropping out, when they might have been better served by pursuing a skilled trade. Our economy only needs so many communications majors.</p>
<p>What you should be complaining about is why there aren’t more well defined paths/apprenticeships for pursuing a skilled trade, like is available in Germany. </p>
<p>35-40% of UCLA and UC Berkeley students are Pell Grant recipients, so your premise doesn’t apply to those colleges for some reason. </p>
<p>^^^ Ditto what GMT said. </p>
<p>And there are plenty of options for working class kids. They simply have to choose them. And that’s the difference. They do not all choose to work towards options that will give them upward mobility or at least a liveable income. But a determined kid can go far as there are many options and programs to help them. And let’s not overlook the opportunites that the military offers our kids. So no, these kids are not by definiton doomed to a life of ‘no chance.’ </p>
<p>As a poor student, I kind of take offense to this (the title) </p>
<p>I was full Pell, on foodstamps, the works. I’m now completing my master’s at a top college and applying for PhD programs. </p>
<p>I sought out resources as I needed to- like many motivated students. You are there for your family, and that’s good. The difference is, you shouldn’t push your values onto them. Not everyone has the same values. </p>
<p>My dad was dirt poor, and he went to college, got a few patents when working as an engineer. His parents did not get past what we would call fourth grade.</p>
<p>The number one factor I see with poorer kids not having a chance is overworked/undereducated GCs. When I do alumni interviews with urban kids, time and again I become a mentor for half of the interview. Their GCs invariably did not help them at all. Which is sad. Every time you hear of one kid who has a mentor in HS, there are hundreds who never had a mentor.</p>
<p>This thread was started by someone that continually violates the Terms of Service (multiple accounts) and is therefore banned. If this is a discussion people want to have, it would make sense for someone to start a new thread on the topic. - FC</p>