Having money does not make one person better or worse than another person, but the person with more money has more options, and that can result in having better experiences.
Beware: controversy below. Move to the right to avoid!
This is a more important issue than I’d have thought prior to my own kids’ experience. That is probably partially due to there being far greater schisms between those with and those without among the current college going population.
In my experience, different colleges impact on the extent to which economic differences among students make a difference to students’ social world -and this is true about differences across colleges even among colleges that seem to be very similar in terms of cost or “status” or selectivity. I think a school’s driving ethic/values drive these differences. For example, in some schools those that commit and get their deposit in first have a wider choice of dorms over those that bring up the rear. That one initiation to the college says more than it might initially appear to. Had that been true for schools for my kids, they’d have been assigned large corrugated boxes-since $ was scarce after paying the costs of applications and visits.
Also , some schools “nickel and dime” students. It’s not the nickel and dime that hurts but the overall mentality towards expenses. {no, tuition isn’t necessarily lower in these schools-it isn’t a matter of simply being fairer or regressive (as in taxes) and charging only those who use the resource instead of charging all in tuition. It’s is an opportunistic way to collect revenue. It can also result in culling the group interested in a particular resource.
In some schools it is possible for students to buy their way into experiences and opportunities and in others it isn’t. Or at least it is only in rare instances. In those where many opportunities involve large additional fees, those who don’t have them are left out. As a parent, I was immensely grateful for those schools that didn’t award wealthy students at the expense of those less fortunate. I didn’t know enough about that difference with my own so schools were not selected on that basis. But if I had another who was looking for schools, that would enter into the equation-not so much because of the difference in cost but the difference in the schools’ mentality. Top down influences the entire institution, including the students.
If you allow yourself to feel like an outcast because of something you don’t have that others around you do…or if your sense of self worth is defined by how well you fit in with those around you…life is just going to be one “keeping up with the Joneses” scenario after another. Seriously, don’t fall into that trap.
Sounds like you have a great opportunity to improve yourself and open many doors in your future. I’ve been there, so let me spare you the suspense - as someone from a low income family, you are different than many/most around you, and that will not change throughout the course of your life. Even as you accumulate status and/or wealth, that will not change. Many/most of your friends and colleagues will not know what it was like to grow up the way you did, or how hard you had to work to get where you are. Take pride in the fact that you are different.
There’s a lot of good advice in this thread. I was a … not poor, but well below the average income kid at my undergrad private school, and then I went to a large public state flagship for grad school. Here are a couple of things I’ll mention. At the private school, once tuition and room and board were paid at the beginning of the semester, there were no more hidden ‘gotcha’ fees. Clubs aside from Greek were funded by the university, there were lots of free concerts, free lectures, photocopying was covered, etc. It’s been a while now so I don’t remember all of the details but in contrast at the state school a lot of things like photocopying were extra, little things like that.
There’s a lot of talk now on campuses about increasing economic diversity and how to make sure the lower-income kids who are admitted actually graduate and some campuses are doing a better job of it than others. This isn’t just a private vs public issue… it can matter which private and which public. Some are going out of their way to have extra support staff to make sure kids like you are getting the resources you need to be successful and feel like you are a valued part of the community and whether you choose to land at a private or public college you want to check out what the graduation rate is for their lower income admits.
Would these be industries there is competitive status symbol display (e.g. in clothing, watches, shoes, vehicles, etc.)?
I agree with others that among elite schools, rural LACs are especially good at leveling the playing field for students of different incomes. Public flagships are often among the most segregated options (financially and otherwise).
@ucbalumnus: Not really a factor as a certain level of dress is expected in biglaw & many, probably most, use public transportation. What is a “watch” ?
Big 4 dress is often quite casual, although it varies by location. But, no, none of these are factors.
P.S. Although the reference to shoes does remind me of the common description of “an accountant with a personality”. How do you tell an accountant with a personality ? He stares at your shoes when talking to you.
My experience working at a large law firm (at the time, the biggest one in San Francisco and perhaps all of California) was many years ago but I have a feeling that some things haven’t changed: the unspoken but clear ways in which partners displayed their wealth, such as the size and location of their houses and the cut and quality of their clothing.
Also from many years ago, and I hope this doesn’t still happen, but it might: the law firm partner who sneered at me when I was interviewing for a position and he noticed that I had worked as a secretary after college before starting law school.
Anyway, there are some people who will notice income differences and even point them out, and there are others who won’t. Developing a thick skin helps.
^Of course BigLaw partners have wealth. That includes partners who were poor in childhood, and yes such partners exist, although others may or may not be aware of that background.
Yes. Example: University of Wisconsin has PRIVATE dorms just on the edge of campus. They are more expensive and arguably nicer than the on-campus, university-managed dorms. In-staters choose the university dorms. Out-of-state students populate the private dorms. They just seem to know about it beforehand and gravitate there. The intel is passed down from year to year. Pretty sure other universities have a similar situation.
I have experience with this, albeit it’s a bit different. In undergrad, my classmates’ families were on average more affluent than mine, but the gap wasn’t quite so wide for most people. (My freshman year roommate’s family was quite wealthy; she grew up with a housekeeper and didn’t know how to work the washer and dryer. I loved her!) Graduate school was where the real differences were - I went to an Ivy and some of my friends were famous supermodels, politician’s children, offspring of fancy executives and the like. I was usually the person from the poorest background in most rooms, and I grew up working-class, not dirt poor.
Worrying about feeling like an outcast or not being able to afford things is a real worry, and it will happen. In undergrad, I spent my spring breaks working or staying at home when most of my friends took beach trips. I did work in college and did have to answer (or roll my eyes) at some well-meaning but ignorant questions about why I worked. It was customary for juniors and seniors to move off-campus, but since I could afford neither an off-campus apartment nor a car, I was stuck on campus. (That’s not as big of a deal if people like you, though; it wasn’t difficult for me to get rides to events or house parties.) My summer internships and jobs were definitely less glamorous than most of my friends’; I needed money, so I didn’t have the option of taking an unpaid internship and did not have the connections some of my classmates had.
In graduate school, similar things happened - a friend of mine got married in India and I couldn’t afford the visa, much less the travel. (In hindsight, I wish I had borrowed, begged, and stole to go to that one.) There were definitely small things I had to miss out on too, and occasions when I went and ordered one drink and a salad and hoped nothing bad would happen between then and my next paycheck. Graduate school brought other things - me and a bunch of my cohort mates got married around the same time, and the difference between their weddings and my wedding was staggering. (And aquapt is right - the milieu makes a difference. I went to graduate school in New York, so the disparity could seem much larger, since there were way more fancy restaurants and events to go to. You wouldn’t notice it as much in, say, West Lafayette or South Bend.)
On the other hand, though, I was exposed to thinking and dreaming about a level of achievement I would’ve NEVER thought of had I only went to school with others who had incomes similar to mine. It’s a funny thing, what effect your peers’ goals and ambitions have on you. You start to realize that you are just as intelligent and capable as your classmates, and if they can aspire to be MBB consultants or Supreme Court justices or Ivy League professors or whatever, you can too! And honestly, that upgrade in your ambitions for yourself is WAY more important than missing out on the occasional concert or trip. And I learned some skills that I wouldn’t have learned if I stayed with only people from my income group - things like how to eat with chopsticks, how to behave at a wine and cheese shindig, how to eat at a party with multiple forks and spoons and cloth napkins, that there are things called “stocks” that you can invest your money into, etc. These are skills that actually have come in really handy in my current career/life, as I’m in a totally different socioeconomic status than my parents were (or are).
And actually, some of the experience is about building those connections. What if one of your classmates’ parents is the CEO of a company you want to work for, or a semi-famous journalist in your region, or a former president? (No seriously, the daughter of a past president was one of my classmates in graduate school! Her father gave the commencement address for our school :D) That’s not even mentioning the alumni connections…a sitting president came to give the commencement address for a school in the university a different year.
1 Like