<p>What do people misunderstand about poverty in this country? What do they “get wrong”?</p>
<p>I think people misunderstand what sort of socioeconomic status qualifies as “poverty.”</p>
<p>However, I’m not sure this is relevant to the thread. </p>
<p>I don’t think the author of the article we’re discussing intended to limit the discussion to students from families that meet the definition of poverty, and I don’t think most contributors to this thread intended that, either.</p>
<p>So, many people seem to think poverty is just an unfortunate circumstance that has happened to an alarmingly large and growing percent of the population and they feel the need to show compassion which of course solves nothing. Sometimes it is. Sometimes is isn’t. People move in and out of poverty depending on choices and events. Yes, sometimes tragic events. Other times, very bad choices. </p>
<p>People used to be able to work their way out of poverty and many still do accomplish that feat although it’s getting harder due to a variety of reasons. Some well-intentioned but counter-productive.</p>
<p>These students in question have worked very hard for that opportunity. It can also be done at a CC for virtually nothing.</p>
<p>It’s NOT about Uggs and i-phones. It’s about how economic disparities and their impacts are probably worse at elite schools, where the nature of campus life is oriented toward the majority of “haves,” and that these “haves” possess assumptions about life that are not reality for the “have nots” on campus.</p>
<p>Well, no-one disputes that GFG. I’m sure it’s true to a lesser extent at many not so elite schools, too. That just gets us back to being poorer is harder than being richer whatever your definition of poverty.</p>
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<p>I don’t doubt this happens. It is what to do about it. </p>
<p>Most of my close friends are well off, but we have one friend who was divorced and unemployed. It was impossible to verbally acknowledge that she could not afford to do the things we wanted to do as a group, because that would be rude and we didn’t want to embarrass her. So we would talk about doing things as though money wasn’t an issue for her because we didn’t want to her to feel different or left out, or we would talk as though we assumed she had the same choices we did because we didn’t want her to feel bad in front of the group. No one wanted to say things like, “Let’s try that great new restaurant! Oops, except for you, Mary, because we know you can’t afford it.” So we didn’t verbally acknowledge it, but we certainly were aware of her needs and were always sensitive about choosing affordable activities and splitting the check according to what was ordered and not 5 equal ways.</p>
<p>Maneuvering this issue in a sensitive way is a somewhat sophisticated skill, that I don’t image all that many 19 year-olds have mastered yet. Understanding what is going on requires both sides to participate.</p>
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<p>I know that. You know that. But apparently the poster to whom I was responding didn’t know that, because s/he opined that a student who had to work would not have ECs and would not get into an elite school as a result.</p>
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<p>Agreed. These can be issues even for kids whose parents aren’t taking out loans. Sometimes a different i-word (isolating) in some circumstances. </p>
<p>What’s NOT an issue for the non-poor kids are things like being able to buy replacement socks or getting serious dental issues attended to or worrying that your cell phone is going to be shut off for nonpayment of a bill right before interview season. </p>
<p>Being able to talk openly and without censure or accusation is what the Duke undergrad is advocating. Not that people should stop taking weekend trips to Europe, or going out to eat every other night.</p>
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<p>applause, Bay. :)</p>
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<p>Pretty much this. The story does a poor job of purveying the poor kids’ perspective, and several posts have implied that it is jealousy that makes it difficult for the poor - again, it’s not. It is hard to describe accurately without a 500 word diatribe about our class system and unconscious behavior. </p>
<p>Of course it does not apply to every rich person, and my family was not poor by the time I got to college. My freshman roommate grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Detroit so his experience in college (the 2 years he could afford) was much worse than mine.</p>
<p>I think the top schools have been very sensitive and have done quite a lot to make life easier for the lower SES kids on campus. I don’t know that there is much more for them to do. The reason I post is to let others like us know that at these schools their children might feel as though they’ve been invited into the clubhouse but not into the club. Some kids do fine with that, partly because attending the school gives them a chance of one day being in that very club. Other kids might have more trouble, and girls may struggle more than boys due to the whole clothing issue.</p>
<p>Magentron - Did your roommate have socks?</p>
<p>I know that sounds flippant and I don’t mean it that way but I think the definition of poor college student vs. rich college student is being exaggerated by posters who are thinking there is third world level poverty on the Harvard campus. I’m sure there are challenges.</p>
<p>I am a single mom who works in a shop for an hourly wage. My daughter is a senior at Harvard with full financial aid, including health care. She works part time for spending money. She has many friends from a variety of financial backgrounds and has never been directly insulted or snubbed for her situation. She actually says there have been times when people are more impressed with her than they might have been once they find out. She’s just candid about it in an unapologizing way. She will not be poor like me, and will be one of those kids who does things for her mother instead of the other way around. The really funny part of our situation has more to do with my daily life than hers. It’s when one of my customers, mostly very wealthy women, find out my kid goes to Harvard. They can’t quite wrap their head around it and look terribly confused and then catch themselves and say, how nice, or whatever. One of them blurted out “How can you afford that?!” I enjoy this, because I never got an education and have waited on people for 35 years, and while I’m happy to be employed, it can at times get tiresome, as you might imagine. Mostly I’m kind of invisible, so when the conversation turns to this, suddenly they see me and want to know “how I did it”. I tell them she was just always smart and I didn’t really have much to do with it; it was always just a trajectory she was on. They’re disappointed with the answer, but for those women, at least, I’m not so invisible when they come in to shop. This happens maybe 2 or 3 times a year and I always tell my daughter how I appreciate that her life and accomplishments trickle over into my day at times! She says she’s “happy to do it for you, Mom”.</p>
<p>I think there are a number of issues here which are getting mixed up.</p>
<p>Out in the real world, grown ups need to learn to navigate income disparity in a kind and not obnoxious way (even for people who have no empathy… you can and should learn to fake it.) So don’t complain to the folks from Merry Maids who come to clean your house that the caterers didn’t do an adequate job cleaning up from your holiday party, or that you’re exhausted because your flight from the Cayman’s got in late last night and that Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie just doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to learn how to handle social interactions with people who obviously have less than you.</p>
<p>Handling so called “peers” (classmates, co-workers, friends from church and your book club) requires slightly more elevated skills and true empathy, so you don’t seem like a condescending jerk. But this cuts both ways- the folks with more need to learn how to interact and be sensitive, as do the folks with less. It is too easy to assume that someone who can “Throw money at a problem” therefore has no problems, or that someone who is going through tough times (either temporarily due to divorce, unemployment, or long term/protracted need) is completely defined by their economic circumstances since neither is true.</p>
<p>To the question above- what colleges can do about it- I think creating an on-campus environment where kids don’t have a need to venture out for entertainment is one very important thing. There will always be kids with cars and kids with unlimited budgets and kids who won’t eat meatloaf if there’s a nice sushi restaurant in town… but when staying on campus is the norm, the economic differences are less apparent on a daily basis. Offering back up services (emergency funds to fly home, formal clothing loaners for kids who need a tux or black gown for a musical performance, etc.) is important. Having adults around (not just the RA’s, but the Master system as in the MIT dorms or the Yale colleges) who can become the go-to place for Thanksgiving for the kids who can’t go home, or who can quietly lend a kid $50 until the paycheck comes in… that’s important.</p>
<p>But I agree on balance with everyone who has noted that the social strata seem more pronounced than when I was in college. Back in the 70’s- nobody had or wore decent clothes on campus. (I was shocked to visit a friend during the summer- a slob like the rest of us- and to see her closet filled with “mommy” outfits. Perfect for the country club; formal dresses for debutante balls, chic outfits for tennis and golf. But NONE of these went to college with her, and in fact I had been pretty clueless of her “secret life” until I got to her house!) Back in the 70’s- I only knew two people with cars on campus (and one of them was the son of a Saudi prince, who presumably didn’t worry about the price of gas or about lining up on the correct day of the week to fill the tank.) Back in the 70’s, everyone had cruddy jobs during the year (if you couldn’t get work study because you were too affluent, you scooped ice cream or waitressed in town over the weekend.) </p>
<p>Yes, there were rich kids, and some of them were the kindest most considerate people you’d ever want to meet and some of them were horrid clods (just like the poor kids- a pretty even distribution.) But there was no such thing as Starbucks- we made instant coffee in our rooms with illegal immersion heaters. Entertainment was on campus and mostly free. And yes- I went home for Christmas vacation and took double shifts waitressing, while other classmates went to snazzy resorts, but it wasn’t quite as alienating as they way some posters here are painting it.</p>
<p>So not as obvious that some kids were living on very tight budgets, and others could spend $10 a day on coffee without even thinking about it.</p>
<p>Was it better? For me-- a “scholarship kid” it certainly was.</p>
<p>It seems to me, after reading this discussion, that if you are poor, or even not so poor but not very rich, that it pays to think about this issue when you’re choosing a college. That is, are there things about the colleges you are considering that will make it harder or easier for you to fit in with people who may have more money?
For example:
- Are there different levels and costs of on-campus housing?
- Is social life focused around activities that cost a lot–like clubbing off-campus, or involvement in Greek organizations?
- Is it easy to get along on campus without a car?
- Are there systems in place to help poor students with things like books, study abroad, music group tours, etc.?
- How do people on campus dress?
There are probably more. These things can differ widely.</p>
<p>Cross-posted with blossom.</p>
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<p>Yes, it does sound flippant. Because the point about socks wasn’t about having them–it was about being a student who really couldn’t afford to buy replacements if any were lost. The workaround was being extra super-duper careful when doing laundry*. That’s obviously not the end of the world, and it’s not third world level poverty. The student in question wasn’t even complaining, just commenting on realizing that other students didn’t even have to worry about a load of laundry they’d washed a week or two ago, with the unstated message being that the students had so much stuff that it wasn’t an inconvenience. </p>
<p>*Which is a level of care doing laundry that we can’t seem to achieve even at home. ;)</p>
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<p>mountaingoat, love this. :)</p>
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<p>Indeed I asked this question just a couple of weeks ago: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1580162-lack-spending-money-college-choice.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1580162-lack-spending-money-college-choice.html</a></p>
<p>thank you Mountaingoat for your story.</p>
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If the “better off” people are unable to complain, neither should the “worse off” people. </p>
<p>Let them complain about how their M6 gets poor city gas mileage.
Let them complain about how their maid forgot the mudroom again for the third week in a row.
Let them complain about how the gardener didn’t do the weeds.
Let them complain if the other side is complaining, too.</p>
<p>And, goodness, I don’t know who would be annoyed by someone saying, “Thanksgiving just isn’t Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.”</p>
<p>Those who have less need to learn how to handle themselves with people who have more than them. </p>
<p>It goes both ways.</p>
<p>These are obviously difficult issues for people to discuss together, which is why they need to be discussed .obviously.</p>
<p>But this difficulty gets to the heart of why it can be difficult to be poor–or working class, or rural or international or gay–at one of these elite schools where there is, despite much real effort at the contrary, a strong dominant sense of a privileged class at the center of college life. There can be a feeling of “otherness” that makes life difficult for a student in what appears to everyone else to be a welcoming and open community, a feeling that can be very difficult to discuss with people who just don’t , well, “feel” it.</p>
<p>My own experience was as a middle class kid a generation ago in a LAC long known as a bastion of privilege and social standing, a school opening itself to new kinds of students but still very much characterized by its upperclass roots. I remember my years there as very fine indeed, but I remember as well the unease of adjusting to a world quite unknown to me in high school. I certainly adapted, but mostly by taking on as best I could the ways of the world I found myself in. And at a bit of a cost, I have to admit now, mostly in a mild shame at the ways of my humbler background, a shame which I hid as best I could and can barely discuss even today.</p>
<p>And this from a middle class kid, not a poor kid.</p>
<p>I’m happy as hell for the poor kid who gets into Yale and I don’t pity her (or him), not at all. But i recognize that “gratefulness”–though she may well feel it!–is very unlikely to be her only reaction to the riches around her.</p>