Income Levels at Top Colleges (Mini, have you seen this?)

Parents Forum
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<p>Blossom, I agree we have big problems in education all over the spectrum.</p>

<p>This Pell Grant issue is a big deal to me because the students coming out of these elite schools become leaders and are coming out with policies that affect the lives of millions and millions of people and they are clueless about how these people live and their needs and wants.</p>

<p>Look at Social Security, Medicare, Public Education. The leaders are coming up with policies that affect people that absolutely rely on these programs and these leaders are clueless.</p>

<p>Just look at the last election. Neither candidate could relate economically to the masses. I would say, because of religion, Bush actually did a better job in relating.</p>

<p>How are leaders are educated is important. Same with everybody else.</p>

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<p>This is mixing up the categories, though. Columbia has one of the higher Pell averages of this grouping, despite the fact that it's acceptance rate is on par with HY. Now, I know it's not a "HYPSM" school, but I have a feeling that students there do work as hard, or harder, as in those others.</p>

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<p>kirmum wrote:</p>

<p>"To grow up in my neighborhood was to believe you only became rich by lying and stealing from the poor."</p>

<p>kirmum, we thought that at my house too!! And we are white! :)</p>

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<p>Lp 75's post deserves more thought. </p>

<p>Anyone who is ***<em>ed off about the lowermost economic classes not being better-represented in colleges should do what Lp75 did and take a kid who wouldn't otherwise get to go *with you</em> on your family's college visits. This is a GREAT idea.</p>

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<p>"This Pell Grant issue is a big deal to me because the students coming out of these elite schools become leaders and are coming out with policies that affect the lives of millions and millions of people and they are clueless about how these people live and their needs and wants."</p>

<p>Reading that statement was like a breath of fresh air, dstark! Well said!</p>

<p>Blossom, I agree with your statements about K-12. I would quit my job, go on public aid and homeschool before I would send my D to our local elementary school.</p>

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<p>I sympathize with those who feel that their public schools are ****e.
I encourage all however, even if you don't send your kids to the local school, to get involved by volunteering at the local or district level.
Even if my youngest isnt' recieving the level of education that her sister did ( big difference between 14 in a class and 34) she is still developing skills that will serve her well in life and in college.
I also have had my eyes opened by spending time with students that don't look like me. I am getting at least as much out of it, as they are.</p>

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<p>Here, here! Or hear, hear (as in, everyone should hear this!). </p>

<p>Well said. CAM (couldn't agree more), and I volunteer on a lot of our district's education committees. I agree with dstark too, but would like to see a LOT more improvement in the public school system and a LOT more money to the land-grant colleges and universities.</p>

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<p>At various times I have considered taking my kids out of our public school system, but I have perservered, and worked with other parents to improve what we have. It's imperfect, we have budget issues every year, but I have found the teachers to be dedicated and the administrators responsive to the needs of students and parents who want to succeed. I feel my children have gained a broader view of the real world, but we'll never be able to have all the resources that a purely affluent district would have. I can't say I haven't thought about private school, but ultimately, the real diversity they are immersed in every day seems of great value. If I had less able children who were at risk of falling behind, I would probably leave the school system.</p>

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<p>Ephipany's post brings a lot of these arguements full circle. The idea is to get the children into a position to be well educated well before college. Anger, as blossom says, is being aimed at the wrong place here. </p>

<p>Momsdream, yes I got onto Harvard with a 1000 SAT score. 4 years later I got an almost perfect score on the LSAT. Once I was put into an environmemnt with support and caring teachers, my potential was fully realized. After a freshman year spent learning the basic study skills, writing skills and so on that the majority of my classmates arrived with, I got a 4.0 in all but 1 term. </p>

<p>When my little brother was studying for his doctorate in psychology, he IQ tested the whole family. Amazing IQs among my older sibs who did drugs instead of going to college. The system fails these kids way before they hit college.</p>

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<p>And Dstark, blame the Dems, there were many potential candidates who had broader backgrounds to choose from last year. Why in the Heck they chose someone few could relate to remains a mystery to me. </p>

<p>Your notion that elite schools are graduating scores who are inexposed and out of touch is just plain wrong. You need to go spend some time on an ivy campus today. The cashmere sweaters and topsiders of my era are hard to find. Kids of every stripe are evident. </p>

<p>And good point about many Pell Grant recipients being emancipated. That would explain Smith which has a lot of older students. These numbers are not what they seem.</p>

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<p>Sadly, the numbers are worse (or better - depends on how you look at it) than what they seem. Smith has 250 older students (average age 36), all of them residential. Assuming a full 50% were Pell Grantees, if you subtract them from the pool (as one subtracts the Harvard Extension school students, who are not residential), the gap widens, with Smith having well more than three times the rate of Harvard's (6.8%). If you assume they are ALL Pell Grantees, and subtract, it would still be way more than double.</p>

<p>But, pace Xiggi, Smith is a "bad example". Use Amherst. No older students. "Need-blind". Taking out all the internationals who apply to Harvard without any chance of getting in, selectivity is close to being the same. The result? Amherst has 2.5x the Pell Grant recipients that Harvard does.</p>

<p>The numbers are what they seem, only more so.</p>

<p>And, no kids of every stripe (in significant numbers) AREN'T necessary evident. You know that. As I remember, you live near USC? And you have been to Harvard? Spent time on both campuses? I'm sure you've seen the difference. You can decide which is good and which is not, but it would be hard to argue they are "the same".</p>

<p>It's their money. They get to decide how to spend it.</p>

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<p>kirmum, I hope I'm wrong. When I see the Pell Grant numbers, and the people from my area going to the IVYs, I don't think so.</p>

<p>All I know is when I am an old man, these people better not screw me. :)</p>

<p>Kirmum, just remember this one thing. I am arguing for more people like you to be accepted into these schools.</p>

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<p>And I'm not arguing against it, I'm saying I don't think Pell grants are a good measure. I'm also saying that I know how Harvard Harvard works to find minority students that can do well there. And that this thread seems to have taken on an overly simplistic view of diversity. </p>

<p>Mini, as for USC v. Harvard, if piercings are a sign of diversity or Pell Grant recipents, I will grant you that USC is more diverse. But I have not noted a difference in faces of color. Again, I would guess USC has less State and international representation.</p>

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<p>Mini, for the sake of accuracy, Brown did not exactly "get it right" in the way you describe. What Ruth Simmons did was to get rid of the requirement that first-year financial aid students take a term-time job. This way they can devote themselves to classes and ECs. They are still expected to earn money in the summer, as they are in every subsequent year. Actually, it's Princeton that offers a "flexible summer plan," offering a replacement in the form of one-half grant and one-half loan to any financial aid student who does not meet the summer savings expectation. I don't know how much that helps a poor student who needs to support a family. I do know it opens up the opportunity for an unpaid internship or research position to a middle-class student who would otherwise be working behind a counter. </p>

<p>As the offspring of one parent who needed to support a family, my experience was that the solution was not more financial aid from a residential college. It wasn't even a cheaper local college. It was night school. I fear you are tilting at windmills. The inequities in this country are getting worse every day, and I don't think Harvard is the problem.</p>

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<p>Racial diversity Harvard vs. USC</p>

<p>Harvard:
African American: 7%
Asian American 17%
Hispanic 8%
Native American 1%
White 60%
8% from other countries
Total freshmen:1640
Total undergraduates: 6,640
84% from out of state </p>

<p>USC
African American: 7%
Asian American 21%
Hispanic 13%
Native American: 1%
White: 51%
7% from other countries
Freshman class size 2766
Total enrolled 16,145
67% from California </p>

<p>(Of course, California has the largest population of Asian Americans and Hispanics in the country, therefore a school where the majority of students are from California can be expected to have a correspondingly higher percentage of these students. These general numbers hold true at many other Calif. colleges that pull primarily from in-state)</p>

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<p>"To grow up in my neighborhood was to believe you only became rich by lying and stealing from the poor."</p>

<p>Not by the definition of "rich" put forth here. All you have to do is have an education and become a professional.</p>

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<p>I agree, Strick11. Sometimes "the rich" are spoken of as if they were a species - or a minority group that cannot change its skin color, a class no one who isn't born rich can enter. Not everyone who has money in this country is from an "old money" family (although to be fair, I have several friends in old money families, and they are the LEAST pretentious, kindest, most generous people in my circle of friends. Generalization here, but it tends to be the "new money" wannabes that are ostentatious about their wealth. The old money people I know do a great deal of philanthropic good, and not just for operas, museums, and symphonies).</p>

<p>OK, digression done. I know people who were on food stamps in the 70s who now make $300,000 a year. I know families who (GASP!) sail and hence have a good reason to wear the above-maligned Topsiders, who know what it is like to break open a child's piggy bank to buy bread and milk (I am not making that up). If you saw my son, he might appear to you as one of those wealthy "golden boys," but he knows what it is like to have (back in elementary school) kids feel sorry for him because his house was so run down and tiny, or because he didn't go on ski vacations. </p>

<p>And believe me, I would resent snap judgments made about him by appearance alone, as to whether he would have the "understanding" to make laws for - or run a business that employed - the poor. The immediate knee-jerk assumption that white skin/nice clothes/etc. can be equated to total lack of knowledge about the vicissitudes of life is just as bad stereotyping as assuming every black person plays basketball or every Asian is a math whiz.</p>

<p>My point is that this thread sounds like it is being written in the 40s or 50s, when Biff and Muffy dominated at the elite schools and the poor were kept in their place. I also get the feeling that it is assumed their money is inherited. I know a few people like that, but I know far, far more who, as the commercial said, "got their money the old-fashioned way - they earned it."</p>

<p>{Also, there is a LOT of negativity implied regarding the wealthy, but I long ago realized that if nearly half of the country is not paying taxes (I believe the number is around 47%), and a large number is only paying minimal taxes, then it is the people paying taxes to the tune of $60,000 to $100,000 a year (and more) that are paying the lion's share for everything from medicare to Pell grants to anything else you can name that so many Americans benefit from.}</p>

<p>I just believe - even as an old-school Progressive - that there is a lot more social mobility in this country than people think. My family started with nothing: parents had no college; most of my generation went to state schools - though not me - and our children go to top schools. It seems like it is only THIS generation that wants to skip a step and go directly to the Ivies -- NTTAWWT :)</p>

<p>*That said, let me remind people that I am on record on CC for supporting economic diversity, affirmative action, etc. I just want to point out that people with money are not a monolithic group who inherited their wealth and know nothing of real life, and people without money (been there - seriously, not knowing where the next meal was coming from) can enter the coveted "top 5%" of earners. *</p>

<p>* Sorry if this sounds like a rant! It's 2:15 AM, I have been up for 2 days straight dealing with my mom (see the Cafe thread on the Sandwich Generation), and I am not expressing myself as clearly as I'd like. try to be patient and generous :) - much of what I said above, you have to admit, is true!*</p>

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<p>I think a sizeable majority of the United States population pays federal income taxes, even with the new child tax credits, but you said you were tired (as I am), so let's get some sleep. The ultimate incidence of ALL taxation is on consumers, as any economist will tell you, so everyone pays taxes of all kinds indirectly. Because my wife and I are both self-employed, the largest direct tax bite we see each year is the tax that goes to pay for Social Security and Medicare. We're in the sandwich generation too: my dad is what is called a "c.v. 2 quad" in the medical profession, having been paralyzed by a slip and fall on the ice almost three years ago.</p>

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<p>Bravo nedad, I agree.</p>

<p>I come from a very weird mix because (as I mentioned to Kirmum) I had well educated, self-made parents who went to Berkeley and were very liberal. They've never left the Bay area. </p>

<p>We boycotted grapes, we marched against Vietnam, & every pet we ever owned was acquired at a Be-In in People's Park. </p>

<p>When we traveled to our cousin's house, they had a photo of my Uncle, a judge, standing with then President Nixon up on their wall-- my Dad covered the photo with his handkerchief so "we wouldn't be subject to that harmful influence." My Mom was a teacher of meditiation and yoga. Oh yeah, my parents even threw a "summer solstice" bash one year with live music from Country Joe & the Fish-- to which someone, I was later told, brought pot brownies!</p>

<p>All the while, my Dad kept climbing the ladder at work and-- voila, we were "rich" (though my folks are very humble never got a rich mentality.) So half of me is genuine Berkeley Hippie and the other half is attorney's daughter. </p>

<p>Not what many might think of as Ivy League...</p>

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<p>I've spent a lot of time studying this thread and it just doesn't add up to me. I will use Williams as my example as it is the school that I know best but I would think that my comments would apply to many other schools that are regarded as "elitist".</p>

<p>What doesn't make sense to me is that ALL universities and LACs understand the importance of recruiting and admitting diversity and that low income diversity IS important. Williams has launched a "diversity initiative", lowered its loan expectation for low income families, increased the number of Questbridge admits, has a ton of money, is ostensibly need blind, is generous with aid etc, etc, but still ranks low on the Pell Grant percentage chart. Could it be that Pell Grants are NOT good indicators of commitment to economic diversity? Or could it be that capable poor kids (who I believe are most likely to be urban) are just not accepting Williams' offers?</p>

<p>The second point is the whole conversation about who's rich in America today and all I can say is You go, Nedad! I second the comment that all "people with money are not a monolithic group who inherited their wealth and know nothing of real life". Some of us who pay full tuition actually earned it! (And I have to say to SBmom, I must be much older than you. I was the one with the Country Joe and the brownies, but I'm now paying fullfreight at Williams!) </p>

<p>Williams, as I said, is doing a lot of soul searching about how they can attract more diverse students. They asked for comments and got complaints on many fronts: not enough minorities, internationals, Muslims, conservatives (!), Black and/or Gay conservatives (!!). One person even suggested that they invite "ice fishermen or women from Michigan's Upper Peninsula" (though I have to suspect that that person was not just smoking Marlboros.) When you reject 80% of your applicants, some one is bound to feel left out.</p>