I suspect reactions vary depending on the personality of the scholarship kid, as well as the behavior of the wealthy kids. A confident poor kid, around respectful wealthier ones like @hebegebe’s son, will probably be fine. A more insecure kid might find it too intimidating.
I don’t have, or even know, many kids that went to this type of school; state schools are the norm in my world. But back in my day a friend from high school went to HYPSM on full financial aid. She had an experience similar to @blossom, where it opened up a whole new world for her, compared to her own working-class life in the projects. She has always been smart, hard working, and ambitious and took advantage of all the opportunities. She now belongs to the 1%, but never became an ostentatious or overly consumerist person. Her own kids went to state schools (though she lives in CA where there are so many excellent public options).
In contrast, I went to a fine but not HYPSM level private college, also on full financial aid. There were quite a few kids from the same wealthy suburban areas. I did find my friends, but recall feeling awkward and out of place around those wealthy kids, who teased and snickered at me and my uncool, unsophisticated low income urban ways. I was not as confident as my friend above, who at any rate did not encounter that type of condescending attitude. I hated that school and dropped out after a year. So I dont blame @Excel_Dad for considering his D’s comfort level.
It’s possible I’m not expressing my point well. I’m sure D23 can “manage” or “make friends” in whatever social or economic cohort (her current school has a range of SES, and she has friends across a wide range of differences). That’s great, and I endorse and encourage this entirely. My point is rather that I’d prefer for her college cohort to not be overly tilted towards too much wealth, all (other) things being equal. I’d prefer that it not become definitive of the overall student cohort vibe. That’s all.
I read a fascinating analysis a few years ago which focused on a public Southern university. It was one of these “laws of unintended consequences” studies… the college had moved towards modest merit awards, abandoning its policy of large need-based aid. A few years later, the researchers interviewed the faculty for their perspective on the change.
The professors were irate/annoyed/bemused, or some variant thereof. There was a common theme of “I have to walk half a mile to the faculty parking lot to get into my 8 year Honda, and pass the more desirable student parking which is filled with the BMW’s of the 19 year old students”. According to the faculty, the shift in aid meant that the U was now filled with affluent kids (the poor ones couldn’t afford to attend) whose parents jumped at the bragging rights of “little Susie got a merit scholarship” even when the scholarship was a few thousand dollars off the sticker price- which they could well afford.
My point?
Don’t make assumptions about the actual social experience at ANY college just based on “intuition” or even the data on SES.
It would never have occurred to me that a public U would be “overrun” with rich kids! And it would have never occurred to me that joining a sorority (for example) could involve clothes, grooming, hair styling expenses which rival tuition- even at a public U with a strong mission of educating first Gen’s and kids from modest incomes.
The prevailing social climate may not be what you think it is (that’s my point). There are non-wealthy kids whose parents break the bank to provide them with a car, enough spending money to eat in nice restaurants near campus, go to clubs… and wealthy kids who eat in the dining hall every night, go to $2 movie night on campus, and in general, act like kids from more modest means.
It would be easy to use the income statistics as a proxy for the social climate, but I don’t think it works. There are “rich kid schools” where the student body ain’t that rich, and “ordinary folks” schools where the rich and the not-rich are indistinguishable (which I think is what you are getting at).
@Excel_Dad I think I understand what you mean. We didn’t want our children going to a school where they, on their limited income/savings, wouldn’t be able to socialize with a large number of their peers because we weren’t going to subsidize their lifestyles to include international travel for spring breaks, luxury shopping trips, eating out multiple times a week, etc.
I, too, went to a school on scholarship with a large number of wealthy students (the barbell others are speaking of). While it wasn’t all hard for me to make friends across the S/E board, it was a challenge to navigate social situations where many of my peers had a lot more money so didn’t think twice of going out to eat the same day they also grabbed coffee out and went shopping. Or invited me to go on Spring Break trips that required a passport, flight, hotel money and spending cash.
It took a toll to try to figure out when to say yes (and make my budget work, knowing it would have to be made up somewhere) and when I had to say no and not make my friends feel like I always was saying no. It’s no fun to be the friend who always has to think about their budget and their work schedule when making plans. It also isn’t a barrel of laughs to choose to go out to dinner and have an overpriced cup of soup (for the social aspects) while at the same time knowing I could have eaten at the dining hall for ‘free’.
I didn’t want my children to have that experience, so we were very deliberate about the college search (and the budget) so that they would have more flexibility. They do have friends who have lots of money and spend, spend, spend…but they also have friends who are happy to get a coffee/smoothie at the college cafe with a meal swipe. Finding campuses where the income differentials weren’t quite as dramatic as 60% or so of the campus being full pay was integral for us.
There aren’t a lot of expensive student cars on their campuses, and the schools themselves do a lot to make sure that lower income students can still have the same opportunities as wealthier students (subsidizing study abroad, internships, and other extracurricular activities). As well as also making sure there are a lot of free activities offered throughout the school year (academic as well as social).
Although there is always variability inside any classification, I think one can draw some general assumptions, when wealth gets too concentrated (in my own experience). We may have to agree to disagree about that part. As I was trying to note, I’m not opposed to there being wealth, I’m just opposed to it dominating the vibe. It may be fine, but it may not be - and there are plenty of other schools with more diversity, less concentration, and the same educational opportunities. It’s a parenting preference for me to seek out a more diverse climate for her four years, as I think my D23 would feel more at home in one (she might even prefer to hang out with all the rich kids there, who knows!).
Given this, I see little reason to “take the chance” that a school like this (with little diversity) will defy expectation and so not raise a red flag about a school with little diversity (I’m open to her attending one, it’s just a ‘con’ for me to raise, among many other pros and cons). To use one example - about a school I actually only know a little about - at Trinity in CT, 26% of students are from the top 1%. That’s one out of 4 students from families making more than 700k. 56% are from the top 5%, and 75% from the top 20%. 6% are from the bottom 20%. That’s a lot of concentrated wealth and a lot of homogeneity. Now, could be the everything is just fine with the student cohort at Trinity, and the homogeneity of the population (in terms of class) not an issue at all. But there are schools just as good as Trinity without these potential negatives, so as a parent I’d steer my kid to those other ones.
@beebee3: yes, that’s captures some of what I’m getting at. Not all of it, but what you describe is some of it. There’s nothing wrong with wealth, or wealth at a school. But some schools have a student body in which significant wealth is simply a common experience. My own kid is not poor, and has plenty of privilege. But that said, I’d prefer that excessive privilege not be a common experience of the student body she’ll spend four years navigating.
It’s a peer reviewed study based on tax reported earnings that was published in conjunction with NYT, rather than just NYT author’s opinion/research. The Harvard freshman survey that was also referenced in the post is not ten years out of date, nor are the underlying reasons stated for why a barbell distribution is not present.
Perhaps we could look at in a different way. Is there any publication that shows a barbell income distribution at any highly selective college?
I attended Stanford. A significant portion of my relatives have as well, more recently. One immediate family had 3 different members attend Stanford. Some of my relatives also attended other HYPSM colleges. All of this groups have roots to a low income , rural farming community where few attend college and a large portion do not complete high school…
My experience is that there was often a change after college, but I believe, it was primarily indirect effects, rather than influence from being around high-income peers at the college. The companies that attend career fairs and recruit students tend to be located in higher income areas, and students tend to choose such jobs rather than return to the lower income community where they grew up, which changes spending trajectory. For example, suppose a student has a higher income career after college, works with other persons who also has higher incomes, lives in a higher income neighborhood, … I think it’s likely that person will spend more than another family member who stayed in the rural farming community.
Most Americans increase spending as their income increases. I’ve attended 401k seminars at work where the calculators force you to assume that you must spend the vast majority of your income (expressed as percentage) and must continue to spend a similar amount in retirement. Many also are influenced from peers and friends in their location/work after graduating. For example, if most families they know well send their kids to the expensive, nearby private school instead of the free public, they are more likely to do also do so.
Anecdotally, I am somewhat of an exception to these generalizations. I invest/save ~90% of my after tax (including property tax) income. I don’t often go on vacations and when I do they are often drive somewhere and go on a multi-day hiking trip with my dog… not expensive. My most common restaurant meal is a large pizza at Dominos for $4 ($8 - $3 tip deal - 20% off for Costco gift card) If I was married or had children, this pattern might change.
Both Princeton and the aforementioned Harvard are unusual in that they are both need blind and meets need schools. They have massive endowments. Most schools are not in this position.
The barbell referred to need aware schools. They have to balance the Pell Grant students with full pay students in order to make budget.
Do you have an example of a specific college (need aware or otherwise) with a barbell income distribution? The previously linked Chetty study doesn’t show any highly selective colleges that meet this distribution. The study found that rather than barbell distribution, need aware tends to mean few low income students.
As an extreme example WUSTL had the following income distribution. I realize WUSTL has changed more recently and is moving away from need aware, partially in response to complaints from people/groups reviewing the study numbers.
Income Distribution at WUSL Several Years Ago when Need Aware
57% top 5% parents income
71% top 10% parents income
84% top 20% parents income
<1% bottom 20% parents income
Seems like most of the schools discussed are more like an unbalanced teeter-totter than a barbell.
That Princeton chart showed 28.8% of students from families making at or below the median income in the US…meaning 72.2% of students are from families making above the median income and 54.8% of families making more than $125k per year.
Of course, in that Princeton parent income image, only the bottom category and part of the second category are median and below parent income. That leaves four more categories that above median parent income is divided into, including the top one that is well into the top 1%, but makes up 12.7% of Princeton undergraduates.
This is a far more accurate description (than a barbell) of a typical well-endowed need-blind prestigious private. A typical student there is probably in the upper upper middle class, because of factors, often related to her/his family socioeconomic status, but far beyond simply family income. With the exception of a few schools like Caltech or MIT, they also tend to have far higher percentages of students from the upper class than their proportions in the society, because of these schools’ ALDC preferences.
Kids from affluent families thought nothing about seeking help from “adults”. Asking a professor to review an outline before writing a paper; asking a TA for extra help before or after a “regular” review session; asking someone in the housing office to send a maintenance person over to the dorm, with a “punch list” of all the stuff that wasn’t working properly (hot water tap ran cold in the bathroom; broken window lock; missing cover to an electrical outlet in the dorm room).
I had never seen this in my life. At my big, urban HS teachers were to be avoided except during class. Guidance counselors were there as a last resort when you couldn’t get the classes you needed to graduate. And students didn’t presume that the janitorial staff, or administrators, or whatnot were there to help.
Affluent kids somehow knew how this stuff worked. These were the days of iceberg lettuce and a wilted cucumber called “salad” but one of the rich kids in my dorm asked for a meeting with the head of food services, and two weeks later, actual salads (with Boston lettuce-- something I had never heard of even though I grew up in Boston!) appeared. The broken stuff in our dorm magically got repaired. Rich kids didn’t wait to get a C on a paper to meet with the professor-- they were showing up at office hours on Day 1, being proactive, asking for help.
I thought the authority figure was the RA (she was 20). The kids who grew up in affluent homes understood the power structure.
Yes. The Harvard Freshman Study. Nearly 30% of the frosh are from the 53rd Percentile Income or below while 55% are from the top 73rd Percentile Income or above. That’s basically a family of four making $70,000 or less on one end of the barbell with families making six figures on the other end. Sounds like a barbell to me.
Does not look like a barbell, since the “middle” group is overrepresented, though not as much as the “upper” group, while the “lower” group is underrepresented.
The “barbell” myth seems to be a figment of upper middle class imagination and resentment of both the upper class who pay for college with their pocket change and those who get substantial financial aid.
I quoted the Harvard freshman survey in my earlier post. I used the most recent survey for which there was not a “prefer not to say” category to remove bias in who chooses to list income. I’ll go into more detail this time, using more precise percentiles for the reference year
If I extrapolate into quintiles, then I estimate the following. This clearly does not look like a barbell, unless you mean a barbell with plates on only one side.
D went to a T20 university, with significant aid. This school has a fabulous financial aid program, and while there were definitely plenty of ultra wealthy students, there were also plenty of students from various socioeconomic backgrounds. She didn’t make any rich friends (that she knew of, anyway), but the fact that some people were wealthy never affected or bothered her. I will mention that H & I are both college educated, and we are far from poor; we just aren’t rich.
OTOH, I mentored a first gen student (both in America & in college) who was from a low income family. He went to a top eastern LAC. He struggled with the fact that VERY few students were not wealthy, and he felt that students all expected that everyone was wealthy. It was not what my D experienced at her school. It was tough for him. He then got a second degree at an ivy, and he was shocked that even professors operated on the assumption that students were from privileged backgrounds. Aside from feeling “other,” he felt that his peers had access to internship & job opportunities that he did not, by virtue of their family/friend networks.
So I guess it can be difficult to be the poor one, but not always.
