Effect of College on Socioeconomic Expectations

Parents Forum
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I think that a student’s response to being surrounded by lots of wealthy peers varies not just by school, but also based on the child’s personality. This is conjecture on my part since my oldest is only a college freshman so I don’t really have a point of comparison yet. But all of my kids have attended K-12 schools on significant financial aid, and I think their response to income disparities within their schools has varied based on their individual personalities more than based the schools’ cultures or the wealth distribution within the school.

I do have one kid who wants a high income career and (I think) has always been somewhat frustrated by having less than many of her friends. I suspect her career goals are a reflection of never feeling like she has enough $$$ to socialize with her peers. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have one who doesn’t seem to care at all about “keeping up with the joneses.” Perhaps for this reason, I’ve noticed that the kid who cares the most about “keeping up” has friends and classmates over a lot less than her siblings. And when she does have people over, it seems more likely to be friends who are middle class or below. My other kids don’t seem to mind or even notice when having their super-rich friends come hang out or sleepover in our small cramped apartment. To be honest, when my kids were little and I had more frequent contact with their friends’ parents, I also felt some level of embarrassment and discomfort when I interacted with the families or I was a guest in their homes. So maybe my money-conscious kid picked up on my discomfort more than her siblings did.

On the other hand, I have heard my teens remark on their bemusement (and sometimes amusement as well) about how entitled some of their friends are. I think they are less annoyed by the kids from very rich families than by the kids from upper middle class and wealthy kids. As my son put it, the really rich kids know that they are rich and lucky. My sense is that my kids think many of their upper middle-class friends are unaware of just how relatively fortunate they are. I don’t think my kids know this expression, but they describe some of these classmates as having a sort of “born on third base but think that you’ve hit a home run” kind of attitude, particularly around their academic achievements. And that attitude bothers my kids more than the actual gap in income. I don’t think any of this rises to the level where my kids have wished that they attended different schools and I am not sure that it will impact their college choices, but they do have a kind of impatience with peers who are unable to see how much their parents’ income helps and protects them.

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This was a very honest and candid reply. :clap:

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I was a low income kid growing up (single welfare mom, then on my own at 14). I hung out with other minimally employed, parentless, punk rock friends and had no idea how to behave in grown-up conventional society. Did not think I was going to college at all, until I happened to find out at the public library that financial aid was a thing.

I picked out a supposedly “quirky” and “diverse” LAC (one which is often mentioned on these forums as a good place for “quirky” kids). Once I got there, however, I felt like I had been admitted as the element of socioeconomic diversity. It seemed to me that every one of my classmates had grown up in a comfortable big suburban home with two gainfully employed parents, siblings, family dog, white picket fence, a late-model vehicle for each parent, and pretty much total lack of financial worries. These kids seemed culturally homogeneous and socially conventional, and although I made some friends, I generally felt really alien in this social group.

Purely for academic reasons, I then transferred to a university in the HYPS category, where a lot of my classmates were flat out rich. I didn’t expect the social scene to work better for me there, but oddly enough, the super-rich kids were a lot more accepting of a weirdo like me, compared to the upper middle class kids at the LAC. I ended up with friends on both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, but not a lot of friends in the middle.

I wouldn’t say that attending a HYPS school changed my consumer tastes or expectations. I was still a weird punk kid driving a barely functional used car (and it’s probably a good thing I still had a frugal lifestyle, as this served me well in grad school). However, it did change my life, in terms of opening career and life doors I had never imagined. 100% would recommend the top school full-aid route for any other weird low-income kids like me who can get in.

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Coincidentally, that topic came up this weekend. My daughter related how during freshman orientation there were conversations where people were from - and after hearing a very good percentage mentioning what boarding school, private school or at least well-known magnet school they attended, she realized that her name-of-township-public-HS made her a “minority”. If anything, when she’s looking back now, she expresses how fortunate she had been to have “gotten in”.

Fortunately, she didn’t find this intimidating, as she had grown up in affluent suburbs, where from Kindergarten on, there had always been birthdays and other parties in tiny houses one week, and McMansions, or the occasional “estate” the next. The number of Disney Trips per year were a clear dividing line - but fortunately, she never felt she needed to compensate. The HS student parking lot had a fair share of Beamers, Benz’s and Teslas - but also Corollas.

So in college, she was perfectly comfortable accepting invitations to local students’ familys’ Central Park West apartments, and found it funny that some Friday night plans were adjusted because classmates still had to figure out ways to join family at the Hamptons for the weekend.

As far as consumerism - if anything, she made a point to swim against the stream: Proudly wore something different than a Canada Goose jacket “uniform”, in fact, repeatedly sourced outfits from thrift shops and happily traded outfits with fellow students. And long after Air Pods had become “standard issue” on campus, I remember her telling me that she optioned for wired earbuds instead - almost as a sign of protest.

Now that she’s a few flight-hours away, she gets a similar chuckle while waiting in an airline lounge, writing some papers, all the while overhearing stereotypical frequent travelers topping each other on their insights about the facilities in lounge “X”, compared to the more excessive facilities in the other terminal – rather than simply appreciating that they are not crowded in the main hall at the gate.

So, yes, I see the potential of it becoming an issue - all depending how self-confident a person is with themselves.

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I said above that my daughter always had champagne tastes but it didn’t bother her that much in college that she couldn’t summer in Spain or travel for a weekend to NYC a party.

When it did become ‘real’ to her was in her first two years of working. She was making okay money, but not enough to afford the weddings and all the things around the weddings - weekend bachelorette parties at a resort, dresses from Kleinfelds, trips to Vegas. She and her boyfriend figured out they could just go to the wedding and not the wedding weekend, and not the endless bachelorette events, host showers with $500 worth of designer cookies, give gifts for all the engagement, showers, and wedding. One couple, one gift.

My other daughter is still a poor college student and she’s just had to say no to the weddings and travel. She needs her money for her own travel. Some friends understand, others do not.

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I’d hesitate to ascribe the pricey wedding travel and festivities to the affluent.

I’ve got cousins (so I’ve known these families my whole life) who do the big “destination wedding” blowout in Turks and Caicos, Cancun, etc. knowing full well that most of their family and friends cannot afford to attend. Talking kids of modest means here…

The wedding ends up tiny (and therefore cheap) and the rationale (as one cousin explained to me) “We save a ton of money by NOT having a simple party at the local town hall or Hampton Inn reception room”.

It’s monstrously expensive for the friends and family who feel they need to show up (pricey hotel, exorbitant airfare) but it’s a steal for the couple!

In my experience, the more affluent the family, the more low-key the celebration. Yes, it might be Grandmama’s “beach cottage” for the bachelor party, but at least it’s on Cape Cod or Newport or Long Island so it’s drivable for a good number of the friends! Aunt Martha throws the shower at her gorgeous house in Winnetka, but if most of the friends are living in Chicago, they can manage inexpensive transportation.

I’m seeing that it’s the kids who REALLY can’t afford it who are having these insane, overseas celebrations!!! plus really rich people don’t buy new outfits for occasions… they dig deep into their closets and show up in great aunt Lucy’s vintage Chanel… or their mom’s original Halston/DVF.

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Ucb - It doesn’t appear that we are in disagreement as to the distribution - it’s 30%; 25%; 55% no matter how you slice it or parce it. You’re adding a value judgment that probably deserves its own metaphor. Something like, Langston Hughes’ “A Dream Deferred”.

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Yes, 30/25/55 out of populations of 53/19/28. That is not a barbell distribution, since representation goes up with the income range.

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More like a candy cane, perhaps? I’m only interested in finding the right shape. I’m not implying that any of them represent life outside the academy or are in any sense, equitable or fair.

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Some aspects of fit are easy to determine on paper, like “is it affordable?” and “does it have the desired academic offerings?”. But it is true that some other aspects are hard to determine on paper, or even on a visit.

It does mean that the easy-to-determine aspects should be first screens, in order to avoid doing a lot of work finding fit on other aspects only to discard colleges due to checking finances or academics later.

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Ice cream cone. The small end represents low SES, the big end represents high SES except the very top, and the extra big scoop of ice cream on top represents the very top.

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I’ll buy it.

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A picture of the shape from the Harvard freshman survey is attached, with extrapolation to create more granularity. Each division represents 5 percentiles For example 33% of freshman said they were in the 95-99th percentile, so the upper right most point is at 33%. Note that the freshman survey seems to underestimate income compared to other sources, so I expect the actual distribution is more skewed towards high income than pictured. I don’t know what shape best describes this curve, but it’s not a barbell… maybe a steep mountain?

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I wonder what the curve would look like in the last category, 95-100 percentile, if you were to zoom in? 95th percentile income is around 300K, if I’m not mistaken. Would the 33% of students in the 95-99th percentile be skewed more towards the highest incomes, or would it start to level off at some point over 300K?

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Beachside cliff? The cliff to the beach and then the gradual descent into the ocean?

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When I threw a wedding shower for D1, I had real food and full bar for my guests at a restaurant. When D1 friend’s mom hosted a shower, they had it at the friend’s rooftop and they served sandwiches. It was a BYOD event. D1 said it was one of the cheapest events she had ever been to. I guess that’s why I am still working and they own major real estates in NYC.

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The >= 95th percentile was split up as 16% in 95-98th percentile and 17% in 99th percentile, so the curve would get increasingly steep if you zoomed in. The attachment approximates the shape. The 95-99th percentile now is in 1/5th scale from the other intervals, so divide by 5 to get the portion in that interval. For example, the upper right most point for middle of 99th percentile is at y=85, indicating that 85/5 = 17% of students are 99th percentile. The Chetty study went up to 99.9th percentile and found that even at top 0.1% the curve continues to get steeper and does not level off.

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Or the number of white men who have ever been Supreme Court justices.

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Basically, all you’ve done is take the bottom 60th percentile of Harvard freshman - which consists of families of four making less than 70K a year - and spread them out in 5 percentile increments. You can design a graph to reflect anything you want it to reflect.

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I’m not sure where you are getting bottom 60th percentile of Harvard students is $70k. 45% of students are full pay, so one might expect 60th percentile to be near $250k income. The survey suggests 60th percentile was in a similar near $250k range, after adjusting for inflation. 40th percentile was also well in to 6 figures – far more than $70k. Some specific numbers from the freshman survey are below, after adjusting for inflation:

83rd percentile income among Harvard students – ~$600k
67th percentile income among Harvard students – ~$300k
45th percentile income among Harvard students – ~$150k

The Chetty study is older and only considers domestic students, but used more accurate tax reported income, rather than student self-reported incomes of parents. After adjusting for percentiles to current household earnings:

85th percentile income among Harvard students – ~$600k
61st percentile income among Harvard students – ~$300k
33rd percentile income among Harvard students – ~$150k

The bottom interval in the survey was $0 to $40k annual income. This group was extrapolated over the 5 percentile increments composing the $0 to $40k range for average household income in reference year, so the sum of all the 5 percentile increments matches the percentage of <$40k income Harvard students reported in the survey. The other sums of percentiles composing the income range should also match the percentages reported in the freshman survey corresponding to that income range.

You asked about the “shape”. I made a histogram showing the distribution. You can’t create a histogram of Harvard parents’ income that will look like a barbell. If done accurately on a linear scale, it should look more like the pictured cliff, indicating a disproportionately large portion of Harvard students come from very high income families.

While Harvard is being singled out in this thread, most highly selective private colleges have an even less balanced income distribution than Harvard, particularly selective LACs. For example, the Chetty study found the following distribution for Washington and Lee.

81th percentile income among W&L students – ~$600k
45th percentile income among W&L students – ~$300k
19th percentile income among W&L students – ~$150k

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