Despite a generous financial aid offer from Whitman, it is still 50 percent more expensive than Cal Poly. We are not rich, we are what you call working poor living in Silicon Valley. I am retired, my wife is the only one working. If we were homeless he could get need based scholarships, his disability hampered him from merit based. He’s decided on Cal Poly even though it means the end of his golf career probably because after my wife and him looked at the numbers, he didn’t want us to give up eating for the next 4 years. The allure of Whitman was strong, free country club privileges as well as all the top golf courses in the area, a beautiful campus, everything 5 minutes walk from anywhere. he didn’t like the idea of being so remote from us, but he loved the campus. There are some very nice people at Whitman, really nice. He would’ve been a big fish in a small pond. We are Chinese-american, so we look like a minority. I was born here in SF. I don’t even speak Chinese, but I am aware of racism. Heck I went from 2nd grade wondering how a white italian kid in my class felt as the only non-chinese kid in class to being moved to the suburbs and walking into my new 3rd grade class and thinking to myself, well, now I know how Jimmy felt. I was the only minority in the entire elementary school. There were no blacks, hispanics, asians at all, only me. Guess what, I never felt different than everyone else, only a few times from a few ignorant guys. Unfortunately in some ways we’ve become so tribal and extreme, for some reason you have to take sides, there is no longer a middle. That’s sad. I wish everyone tried to be a good American first and foremost instead of being a liberal or conservative.