<p>"With all due respect to Ruth Simmons, this position doesn't do a SINGLE thing to address the issue of financial aid for EDUCATION. Every time we attempt to mix different issues, we simply go backwards. Financial aid for education should NOT be viewed as a corrective measure for DIRECT poverty mitigation."</p>
<p>Xiggi - I agree with you (and I bet that, in the main, Ruth Simmons would too.) The reason to have low-income students on campus is because, without them, academic quality for ALL students (most of whom are high income) suffers. That's precisely what the Justin Ewers article was all about.</p>
<p>Financial aid for education is not best addressed by focusing on elite schools, except to the degree that future policymakers tend to come from them (or at least so it is claimed, and I wouldn't be one to argue the point.)</p>
<p>Looking at the statistics of those kids eligible for the Pell grant accepted at the top schools, it does not seem to be huge amount of money these schools are committing, in eliminating loans and work study for those kids whose families are in that income bracket. I don't see why anyone would be against this move. They may argue that it is not going far enough or that the income level is too low, etc, but I don't think it is an unreasonable move.</p>
<p>Jamimom. I'm not opposed to acknowledge this issue. However, it should not be at the expense of addressing issues that are more pressing such as looking at permanent solutions to help the current students who are in college, evaluating correctly the finances of non-standard families, recognizing early emancipation of students, reviewing the terms of repayment of loans, etc. </p>
<p>When attempting to do too much, one tends to do nothing well!</p>
<p>"Financial aid for education is not best addressed by focusing on elite schools, except to the degree that future policymakers tend to come from them (or at least so it is claimed, and I wouldn't be one to argue the point.)"</p>
<p>Mini, I agree with you! I agree with you! :)</p>
<p>Xiggi, usually we are on the same page - but not this time. Jamimom is correct, the idea is not for direct welfare, but to make a very expensive residential college doable for very low income kids. I'm not a big supporter of affirmative action, but I do believe that persons of low income have a voice that needs to be heard on college campuses, and having grown up with very low income folks, I can tell you it takes more than the cost of education paid. Unfortunately, there will still be limited numbers of kids who can take advantage of Princeton's largesse, because they aren't going to make enough money to pay for the sitter for Grandma or the little ones. Also, it is really tough to fit in, as was discussed, it takes a special character to get through the culture shock.</p>
<p>Would I want my child to go to Princeton if I made 20K a year? Probably not, that's quite a burden to put on your child - take the full ride at the state uni. Do I think large amounts of tax dollars should be spent getting kids to Princeton? NO, the money is better spent getting more of them into and through 2 year and 4 year local institutions, or in my state, making the high schools decent. Does Princeton have a right to do whatever it wants to do with its endowment money? Definitely, and again, I think there are probably more kids at these elite schools who have never known anyone who was truly poor than have never known an URM, so there is room for more diversity of SE background.
I know my daughter does not know anyone who went to bed hungry, but I did growing up, and my parents knew many people who lived on cornbread and greens, and oranges for them were a Christmas treat.</p>
<p>Some may disagree with me, but I think socio-economic diversity will be a much tougher goal than even racial diversity.</p>
<p>I'm still waiting to hear details of how "many" college students are working to send money home to their families while attending college. Not surprised that Mini can't come up with real numbers, but what else is new?</p>
<p>Driver, I am curious why you want this headcount? Is it not enough for you to see that someone who lives in a household that is eligible for the Pell grant is going to find it tough to lose a bright 18 year old? I don't think it takes a stretch of imagination to see that such kids just might be helping out the family in some way, and that their loss will be a financial drain. Though I was not in that category of "poor", I know that when I was in college, I would use the money I earned at times to buy things for my younger brother that my parents could not afford. My brother still remembers his first calculator--do you remember how expensive those things were when they first came out? I got one for myself, and my brother's envious response got me to work some extra hours and buy one for him for Christmas. Another year I sent extra money so that my Dad would buy a brand new car instead of a used one as he always did as the car repair issues were just so bad that year. And many, many times I sent money to my mother for something extra. It does not take a lot of imagination for me to see kids at those lower income levels sending something home for the parents. How many are you expecting there are? Is there a threshhold number you want?</p>
<p>"I'm still waiting to hear details of how "many" college students are working to send money home to their families while attending college. Not surprised that Mini can't come up with real numbers, but what else is new?"</p>
<p>I gave you the real numbers I have - Pell Grants (as I gave you the actual number of Williams binge drinkers, the income level of top 5%ers, the distribution of financial aid, the median household income and the median family incomes), and the Wechsler numbers that have been made public. </p>
<p>If you want more numbers, you're a smart person, and I'm sure you have wherewithal to go get 'em.</p>
<p>Cangel, I am not advocating reducing the number of students who receive help nor reducing the help. I am actually advocating to EVALUATE the extent and the cost correctly. The fact that some students MIGHT have to send money home muddies the water and makes intelligent dialogues more elusive. </p>
<p>When addressing problems, we need to be able to measure its TRUE costs. Efforts to overhaul entire systems to accomodate a small percentage have few chances to succeed. Case in point: the moronic attempt by Billary to change a system that works -not very well, but still works- for 80 to 90% of citizens in order to address the failure of the system to insure the remaining 10-20%. If the commission had been less inclined to toss everything out and focused on finding solutions for the unlucky ones, we MIGHT have had a solution. </p>
<p>Simply stated, the funding of the college costs have to be restricted to the cost of attending school, but SHOULD account for the entire cost. The entire cost should include medical coverage, normal expenses, and extended travel costs, or in other words everything that a truly independent student should require. However, given the current state of public and private finances, it would be utopian to believe that more than that could be done. Financing education cannot become a veiled welfare tool. </p>
<p>I would prefer to find solutions to fifty small problems than to try to change entire SE conditions. I think that we all remember the story of Candi who benefitted from a generous help package but lacked the adequate medical coverage that she needed. Addressing cases like her falls in the DOABLE domain. Trying to find additional financial support for her mother or siblings would NOT. </p>
<p>The objective is to develop mechanisms by which MORE students could afford the costs of a higher education AND complete the four or five years of schooling. Transforming loans into grants is great, but it does not do much if a student cannot pay his EFC. Moving the subsidized loans to cover a portion of the EFC may actually provide much more help! Removing or deferring the taxation of grants and scholarships falls in the same category. I could go on with a list of small items!</p>
<p>For example, in some a capella groups, the students wore suits; in others; they wore ordinary clothes.</p>
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<p>The a cappella singers buy those tuxes used at a place called Keezer's and generally wear them for four years. :) It doesn't have to be a huge investment.</p>
<p>I think the schools should do everything they can to ease the transition for low-income students, including admitting more of them so that they don't feel so isolated. But I don't necessarily view it as a tragedy that kids are experiencing some culture shock. If they're going to be out in the larger world, those kids have to experience that culture shock sometime, and it's probably better to get it earlier rather than later. If those kids at Princeton are someday going to be leaders on Wall Street, in academia, in the professions, even in social service organizations, they need to be fluent in Upper Middle Class.</p>
<p>If the admissions office is doing its job, hopefully the more sheltered suburban kids are getting some culture shock too.</p>
<p>Many of us who were on the boards this time last year remember Candi's situation. She had to take into consideration whether or not a school needed an enrollment deposit when deciding colleges. </p>
<p>In addition to having her own medical needs she was also a source of income and support for the family that she left behind in NYC when she went off to Yale. She did feel pressure as to her familiy's loss of income when she went off to school.</p>
<p>"If those kids at Princeton are someday going to be leaders on Wall Street, in academia, in the professions, even in social service organizations, they need to be fluent in Upper Middle Class.</p>
<p>"If the admissions office is doing its job, hopefully the more sheltered suburban kids are getting some culture shock too."</p>
<p>
[quote]
Driver, I am curious why you want this headcount? Is it not enough for you to see that someone who lives in a household that is eligible for the Pell grant is going to find it tough to lose a bright 18 year old? I don't think it takes a stretch of imagination to see that such kids just might be helping out the family in some way, and that their loss will be a financial drain.
[/quote]
It's entirely possible......it's also entirely possible that this notion of deserving poor students working while attending Ivies to support their sharecropper families is a fantasy. Which is why I asked for facts from the person who is known for wildly slinging factoids that support his particular agenda.</p>
<p>I know about Keezer's! Tomorrow, in fact, I plan on dragging S there to see if there is a tux that fits. But then, we also have to buy the shirt, the shoes, the cummerbund... not to mention the boutonniere, the corsage. I'm sure I've forgotten something.</p>
<p>My more important point is that participating in the many ECs available at elite colleges can cost a lot of money.
I'll never forget overhearing one student talking about her daily trips to some teashop to another student on finaid. The former considered her expense trivial, while the other was rather obviously doing some mental calculation before muttering that it represented so many hours of work-study for her.</p>
<p>"given the current state of public and private finances, it would be utopian to believe that more than that could be done. Financing education cannot become a veiled welfare tool"</p>
<p>Xiggi, like other conservatives supports defunding government than he says: "Sorry no money for any solutions. " So circular. Perhaps politically effective, but so dishonest intellectually. Cavlier about millions of people without healthcare who would have it in any other advanced country.</p>
<p>I am actually on the phone at this moment listening to a client drone on about how he is going downhill as he can only take 1 of 4 medicines for his severe congestive heart failure. He lives in an oulying poor rural Texas county. A 33 year old with fluid build up. He may very well die, while trying to get social security disability, which is why he called the office. He has no medical evidence since the original 21 day admission to the hospital, so I had to tell him how to work on his own case. Can't take it on a contingency. Advised him to keep going to the rural ER. Maybe he can shame them into giving him some free medicine. If he goes into acute congestive heart failure maybe they will do a test that can help him win.</p>
<p>Another day at the office.</p>
<p>Sort of different when you aren't just reading conservatives in a background devoid of real cases.</p>
<p>The Starbucks phenomonon is an expensive one for students. I go to one a few times a week--H insists because I border on phobias about getting out myself and doing things like that, and have gotten to like our local one. But I notice that when school lets out, or when the extracurriculars are over, the place is over run with high school kids. And here I am shaking my head over the price I pay for my drink and muffin. How do these kids afford it? And so it is at college these days. I don't remember even paying for a cup of tea in college. Had a hot pot and tea bags. Now it's chai at steep prices (no pun intended). I do believe it has gotten more expensive these days. My son went a school where the meals tended to be a la carte which is a big expense for kids. No central cafeteria. So your kid either cooks his meals, eats ramen or pays big bucks for meals. I do think it is more expensive to go to college these days.</p>
<p>participating in the many ECs available at elite colleges can cost a lot of money. </p>
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<p>The main cost that I saw -- and it's a big one -- is that activities that take up 98% of your free time limit the time available for a job. I've known members of varsity teams and Crimson editorial boards (15-40+ hour/week commitments) who were on work-study, but it's a juggling act. If you need to earn $4000 during the summer, you can't be a Let's Go researcher or tour with the Krokodiloes (although one Krok I knew solved this problem by touring junior summer and earning double his expected summer contribution senior summer).</p>
<p>Let's not forget that the student who gets into an a cappella group has had, in most cases, years of training. Now, I'm sure there are a few who got that training in their church choir, but for the most part they certainly sound as though they have paid for voice lessons. If we begin unraveling the inequities, we will find ourselves going way beyond tuxedos. Ultimately and ideally, there is a kind of push-pull going on, with the privileged ones setting the bar in some areas, and those from deprived backgrounds doing so in others.</p>
<p>for the most part they certainly sound as though they have paid for voice lessons.</p>
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<p>At least at Harvard, a cappella group members with private voice training are a small minority. Overwhelmingly, their experience is in high school musicals and choirs, or else with instrumental music. Those amazing solo voices -- I've seen their audition sheets, and a lot of the superstars are just plain gifted.</p>
<p>Now, I'm sure that kids with private vocal training get into groups at higher rates than the general pool -- it's just that the sum total of those kids is very small. I will definitely grant you that the differences between high school music departments probably play a significant role. A kid who's been taught to sight-read and who has been held to a high tuning standard in choir has a major edge. What talented but inexperienced kids often end up doing is joining a less competitive group, like the Glee Club, for a couple of years, and get into the Din & Tonics on their third or fourth try after honing their skills in the larger group.</p>