<p>Well now, I don’t read any despising on this thread. I don’t even see jealousy. It’s just a question of how hard life is on these campuses for kids who don’t have the advantages of some pretty advantaged classmates. Being poor is harder. Why is that even news?</p>
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<p>To this point, there are plenty of full-pay students who don’t eat at expensive restaurants, wear designer clothes, join exclusive eating clubs, take exotic trips. They wear jeans and sweatshirts, get part-time jobs during the school year, and don’t go home for Thanksgiving because its too expensive. The reality isn’t that <em>all</em> the rich kids are doing all these things that are out of the question for the poor kids. The reality is that at a lot of these elite schools, the <em>majority</em> are receiving some FA.</p>
<p>They might have it hard in college,but as soon as they graduate from those schools,i’m sure they’ll find a job right away.</p>
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<p>I think one (Yale) was for grad students, and the other was a little different in that it was a MS program but for people with a BS in another discipline, i.e. no nursing education whatsoever. That program by necessity must have a period of time where nursing classes are equivalent to a bachelor’s level study. But most on the list had bachelor’s programs. </p>
<p>Personally, unless I was wealthy and had a lot of extra money to spend and wanted my kid to have a certain college experience, I would not spend a lot of extra money on a program like Vanderbilt (over 50K per year) vs. a good state school for undergrad nursing. Most states have very good public nursing schools which are attached to fabulous research hospitals.</p>
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<p>Perhaps, not despise, let us say several posters have a “problem” or an “issue” with kids getting full rides to elite schools while the poster must pay full-freight for their own child. </p>
<p>The same posters with said “issues” also tend to think those on full aid are lazy and do not work or if they do work, get the “good” paying on-campus jobs without understanding that in most cases Federal Aid subsidizes those better paying jobs. My son found this out as he was not even offered work study. I don’t think anyone in this thread appears jealous at all, uninformed or lacking compassion, yes, but not jealous.</p>
<p>“Except maybe for Harvard and a few others, I suspect that at most private schools there is a “doughnut hole” of families for whom there is no need-based aid, but for whom full pay is a major challenge.”</p>
<p>But “doughnut hole” implies that there’s adequate cake at the bottom for the low-income kids. Most of the time, there isn’t. Outside of Harvard et al., sufficient need-based aid isn’t there for anyone, and the low-income folks are the least likely to qualify for merit aid.</p>
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<p>So are the full-pay kids. It’s their parents’ money, not theirs.</p>
<p>By the way, this is the actual article the Forbes article refers to near the beginning:</p>
<p>[I</a> came to Duke with an empty wallet | The Chronicle](<a href=“http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2013/11/11/i-came-duke-empty-wallet]I”>http://www.dukechronicle.com/articles/2013/11/11/i-came-duke-empty-wallet)</p>
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<p>At all but a very few schools the kids with $0 parent contributions are taking on loans as well as jobs, so it’s not totally free for them either.</p>
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<p>You are entitled to think what you like.</p>
<h1>130 That is true of a lot of full-pay students as well (taking on loans and jobs, that is).</h1>
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I don’t follow why 99% of the population would feel unworthy to have a roommate whose family was very wealthy? I once had a roommate who was a member of a royal family. I didn’t treat him any differently because of it and certainly didn’t have any feelings of unworthyness. We didn’t get along as well as some of my other roommates, but that related to personality differences and differences in cleaning habits, without an obvious connection to family background.</p>
<p>I think “unworthy” is a poor choice of words. Perhaps “intimidated” or something like that was what the poster meant. Surely her D would not feel unworthy of being at school or sharing a room because someone else’s family had more money. (Actually, intimidation would be unfortunate also.)</p>
<p>Data10, I think we can all agree that your attitude is the ideal to strive for, but we’re not all there when we start college at 18. For a lot of kids, finding out that your roommate cured cancer/owns half of Saudi Arabia/is Natalie Portman is intimidating. Al Gore’s kid was in my college class, and I pretended like I was too cool to care, but I never saw her without thinking about who she was and wondering where the Secret Service was hiding. I’m still capable of being star-struck, and I’m old enough to be a teenager’s mom.</p>
<p>Perhaps “intimidated” is a better word choice.</p>
<p>And sorrynotsorry if the couple of posters aren’t getting the gist of my post - which was there is ALWAYS someone richer/smarter/skinnier/more attractive than you. And everything is relative.</p>
<p>Because I pretty much said “everything is relative” in the part of my original post that was not included in the quotes.</p>
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<p>I would like to see that also.</p>
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<p>Can you point out the posts where someone is “despising” someone for receiving a scholarship?</p>
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<p>Can you point out those posts?</p>
<p>Sure. Just search “proudpatriot” in this thread and you should come up w/ several.</p>
<p>I do not think it is that wealthier families have smarter kids. There are be plenty of non-wealthy families which brilliant kids would could never compete to get in to those schools. There is a big difference between the child who went to a wealthy private school, travelled extensively, had the benefit of everything from music lessons, competitions, sports, etc, and the child whose family does not have the money for these things. I pay thousands of dollars every year for my daughter’s music lessons and public school and city orchestra. The public school orchestra had fees in excess of $1000 to just be in it, and that did not even touch the lessons or instrument. How can someone who does not have the money for all this compete with the one who does? And still, I see other kids who can put down extensive summer activities and ECs, because their parents had the money to pay for it. I have seen some not-so-bright kids go to Harvard even, because their parents paid tons of money every step of the way for everything from private schools to tutors to lessons and activities. Then I see brilliant children who had to work 30 hours a week to get through high school. Selective schools would never take a student that had no ECs because he was working that much. And volunteer work? How can you do community service when you don’t eat if you don’t work a paying job?</p>
<p>Yes, I do get that people tend to get wealthier because they are smarter, and then of course, genetically, their children will, on average, be smarter. But there are plenty of dumb wealthy people and smart poor people. It is just life.</p>