Effect of College on Socioeconomic Expectations

Parents Forum
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Over in the Parents of the Class of 2023 thread there have been a few posts about people whose child was a “scholarship” kid or who received significantly more financial aid than many of their peers at the school and felt some resultant awkwardness. There was also the mention of schools where a large percentage of students come from families that make up the richest 1% in the U.S.

This made me think of my own family. A sibling ended up at a HYPS while the rest of the siblings ended up choosing public schools. (Although state flagships might have wealthier families overrepresented at them, it is nothing as compared to most private Top X schools.) When the HYPS sibling needed a new car while in grad school, the sib was upset that they couldn’t get a Saab convertible and had to settle for a Toyota Celica. The other siblings were all satisfied with whatever form of transportation would get them from place A to place B (and none of them had new cars or nicer brands of cars). Then there were the vacations…one expected to go skiing or to Europe, etc, while the others’ expectations were more along the lines of a long weekend at a nearby beach or just heading to family for free room & board. As the siblings were raised together, one of the biggest divergences I can think of was the HYPS education.

My question is, have families whose children have attended the Top X schools with high percentages of extremely wealthy families seen a shift in their children (assuming that your family is not a top 1%er or similar)? Or if you’ve had multiple children (or siblings) attend different types of universities, have there been differences in what their expectations are with respect to consumerism?

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I have no experience with HYPS, but mt oldest went to a highly ranked, competitive public U that skews toward a population of very wealthy students and families. Generations of wealthy families, many of whom also attended. She had friends whose parents flew in on private jets to visit, friends with their names on campus plaques and buildings, friends whose parents were CEO’s of well-known companies. Her school breaks were frequently spent at someone’s beach house, somewhere.

Thankfully, I did not see a shift in her or her consumer expectations, although we are blessed to live in an affluent city, so experiencing certain levels of wealth among her high school friends wasn’t completely alien to her. I would say that I had more of an adjustment period to it, than her. Realizing that going to football games and sorority parents’ weekends meant seeing a lot of dressing up in designer clothing (by the end of 4 years, I think I pretty much understood the assignment, after being the only one to show up to a freshman year event in gasp a gameday T-shirt :wink:) I was a bit worried that she’d meet a future husband in one of these wealthy families, and I’d be on the hook for a $$$$ country club wedding :laughing: All of that said, the parents of her friends are wonderfully warm people who I enjoyed crossing paths with for the four years. It’s been fun to catch up at our kids’ weddings.

My younger daughter goes to another popular public U with a completely different vibe - very low key, casual, come-as-you-are, not a lot of obvious wealth (although I’m sure it exists). She came to school as a freshman, ready to show up to games in cute school-color dresses, like her sister, only to learn that jeans and t-shirts are the gameday norm. No expectations for parents to dress up for her sorority events (most of them have involved playing cornhole at backyard cookouts). At this university, having high consumerism expectations has not been an issue. The parents whom I’ve met have been very down to earth people, working hard in mid-level careers. Younger D has never been one to be affected by extreme wealth either way, so this school is a great fit for her, and it’s been nice from a parent perspective to be having a “breezy” four years.

I volunteer with high stat, under resourced high school seniors who want to go to college but struggle with the college application process. Most are first-gen. The foundation that I work with typically has between 4-6 QuestBridge seniors each year, many of whom end up at HYPS, Duke, Colby, Emory, etc. and to your point, I do worry about how these kids do once they get there. I have no evidence that they struggle with the socioeconomic differences between them and their wealthy peers, but I do wonder about it and whether they ever feel isolated.

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The Privileged Poor by Anthony Abraham Jack is a good book to read for exactly this issue.

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Nope. Absolutely not. It’s not how my kids were raised. I would hope they would not expect a different monetary lifestyle by the college they attended. So far, it has not happened.

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This is a great student film made by a 1st Gen student at Trinity. Impressive film - after watching, I removed Trinity from D24’s list.

I think life could be pretty miserable for a 1st Gen, low income student at a prestigious college. I’m sure private schools that give need based aid only are even worse. You can get a barbell - very low and very high income, with little in between.

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The usual distribution of family money at those colleges is probably more like the following than a barbell:

  • 10-20% from bottom half (Pell)
  • 30-50% from top half excluding the top 4%
  • 40-50% from top 4% (no financial aid)
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:woman_shrugging: I listened to a podcast that specifically mentioned a barbell. Merit money helps bring in families who can’t afford $80K, but no merit, high number of very rich families.

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My freshman year at college (I was a “scholarship student” which is what it was called at the time) a close friend in my dorm invited the entire floor to her parents home on a Caribbean island for the holiday break. Apparently there would be enough room for everyone.

I declined, thanked her for the invite. Another friend spoke to me privately to reassure me that other than airfare there would be ZERO expense to the trip. All food, entertainment, transportation, etc. would be taken care of by the parents.

It would never have dawned on me to go- the money I made working was to cover expenses; I had already committed to double shifts at my old HS job over the Xmas break; my parents would have fallen over laughing if I had asked them to contribute. In our family, the Xmas break was for working at the old HS job, the Spring break was for job hunting at home for a summer job if you hadn’t been asked back to old job, etc. Nobody was jetting off (or taking the train) anywhere when there was good cash to be made by coming home and subbing for employees who wanted time with their families.

If your kids have been raised with your values (which presumably they have) they will be so grateful for what they have, and for the opportunities at college, that envying or trying to match the lifestyles of the rich and famous will be VERY foreign to them.

The payoff (for me) of the “socioeconomic expectations” was a professional one. The rich college kids friends had jobs I had never heard of. The first time I met someone who said that his dad worked in a bank I was really puzzled. I knew people back home who worked at banks-- it was a nice, solid entry level job if you were a teller, and a nice, solid middle class job if you were a loan officer or branch manager.

Banking was lucrative? Who knew. Someone on my hall’s dad worked “in sales”. Who knew that you could make mega bucks in sales? My BFF from high school’s dad sold carpeting at Sears. That was sales to me.

There was an actual job called “Theatrical Producer”? “Talent agent” for a company whose entire business model was looking for athletes, musicians, comics who needed representation (and what the heck was representation?) Someone else did M&A (what was that, and how the heck did you get a job like that?)

My parents were teachers. Our neighbors were librarians and social workers and pharmacists. The “rich guy” on the block was an optometrist and had not just his own office (where everyone went for an eye exam and glasses) but had two branch offices in adjacent towns. So it wasn’t an uneducated place- lots of people had advanced degrees; all the teachers at my HS had master’s degrees; but I don’t think I knew anyone with a corporate type career until I got to college.

I didn’t find this intimidating. I took mental notes. It was liberating to learn about so many different ways of earning what seemed to be a comfortable living!!!

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It could be, but certainly doesn’t have to be.

We are full pay, but my son lives in a suite with three other boys that are on significant financial aid at Harvard. They all get along well and are pretty happy (my son is aware of their spending limits and lets them choose where to go out to eat). He also lived with another boy that on significant financial aid (first gen low-income college student) who is away on Study Abroad. He is also happy there.

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Slightly tangential, but related: my oldest went to a boarding school (for free, because my spouse worked there). He was exposed to the private jet/manhattan townhouse mega wealthy people. It affected him: he decided that’s what he wanted. He majored in finance, got a job at Goldman, and now is at another firm in NY and on his way to making a fair amount of money, though of course nowhere near private jet territory.

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Agree with this. I’d also add it taught me not just about job opportunities but how to behave confidently in social circles that I’d never experienced and that proved useful in later life. In the UK the ostentatious displays of wealth came from the college (in the form of lavish “feasts”) not other students (that would have been socially unacceptable: manners and accent were much better markers of social class!). So amongst other things, you learned how to hand tie a bow tie, which cutlery to use (including what a finger bowl is for!) and which way to pass the port…

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Back in the day I was on significant financial aid at one of the NESCAC schools. I never thought much about the difference in wealth - I had some classmates that were uber wealthy but it was a low key kind of place and everyone dressed the same - LL Bean boots & sweaters, jeans etc. - so I didn’t really feel it.

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I purposely pulled back on pushing some very high-flyer privates to D23 not because I was worried the exposure to too many very rich kids would alter her expectations, but rather because I thought she wouldn’t be comfortable in that environment. And we’re not poor by any stretch, but at the same time, we’re not super-wealthy either.

If you’re interested in the stats on SES (and other things) at colleges, this is a good resource:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/

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I am first generation American; I learned at an early age how to be comfortable in EVERY environment! But being at a college with some uber-rich kids added another dimension to it. Rich people can be kind or mean; they can be selfish or selfless; some of them have loving families and some have highly dysfunctional families; some love their jobs and some despise them.

I.e. just like everyone else. But with more zeros at the end! There were plenty of kids at college who had grown up with far less than I did; there were plenty of kids who had grown up with more. It was a gift that I learned to move in many different social circles without a lot of friction, and truly, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. I don’t try to keep up with ANYONE- not friends, family members, neighbors, work colleagues. I do my own thing- financially, socially, philanthropically and have tried to teach my kids to do the same.

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That was my experience, too. “Back in the day”, there was less of a barbell effect at even the most expensive private colleges. The wealthiest person I knew at Wesleyan was the third-generation son of a doctor. As the “Ivy League” sibling in my family, yes there are certain socioeconomic differences: I’m a bit more of a joiner than my brother and sister. I think it’s important to attend church; I was part of a soup kitchen many years ago. It was less about how much money I spent than how I chose to spend my time. Does that make sense? Of course, nowadays no one has time to do anything outside of work - which is a real pity, IMO - and may explain the resort to lavish vacations and cars.
That’s my two cents.

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That may be what the podcast said, but when looking at the actual income distribution, I’ve never seen one that resembled a barbell. You can check some old numbers from several years ago at Economic diversity and student outcomes at Harvard - The New York Times . The link is to Harvard, which is summarized below . Search for other school names.

One contributing factor to why the income distribution does not resemble a barbell at Harvard is a sliding scale of financial aid. It’s not just low income gets a free ride and everyone else is full pay. Instead a family earning $150k might pay a substantially reduced cost of $15k. Even families earning $250k often get significant FA.

Parents Income at Harvard: Chetty Study (Tax Reported Earnings)
99th+Percentile Income – 15%
95th+ Percentile Income – 39%
90th+ Percentile Income – 53%

60-99th Percentile Income – 80%
20-60th Percentile Income – 16%
0-20th Percentile Income – 4.5%

Comparing to the most recent freshman survey for which there was no “prefer not to say” option:

Parents Income at Harvard: Freshman Survey (Student Reported)
73-99th Percentile Income – 55%
53-73th Percentile Income – 16%
28-53th Percentile Income – 15%
0-28th Percentile Income – 14%

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This. When I go back to visit my mother in the impoverished town where I grew up, it’s amazing to hear that the vast majority of kids never moved away, or if they went to college, came back to their hometown afterwards. My parents didn’t want that for us: my brother and I knew we would never go back after college because opportunity lay elsewhere.

Learning to succeed in uncomfortable environments (whether social, academic or work) is one of the best lessons my parents taught me.

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That NYT article is nearly ten years out of date.

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Twoin, it’s not a worry about succeeding. It’s rather an issue of finding a social climate in which one can be comfortable, since you have to spend four years there. There are a ton of great academic schools; if all things being equal one has a more diverse SES cohort than another, I’d prefer her to go to the more diverse one. But you know, average mileage may differ.

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My college was diverse (if you mean economically). I sat next to a student in a bunch of classes whose father was a custodian at the college- he was attending for free and carpooled with his dad to work every day. The woman across the hall in my freshman dorms had a father who was CEO of a public company. Another woman on our hall was the child of missionaries who had grown up in various impoverished villages in Africa. Etc. I found a social climate with all of them. You don’t have to have the same budget, upbringing or financial expectations to be close friends with someone in college.

And since at the time, the only qualifier at my college for dorm assignments was “smoking or non-smoking” it was a true hodge-podge. And somehow we all managed! Yes, the child of missionaries can be best friends with the child of a CEO.

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