Low Income students

Paying for College
41

Only top colleges give sufficient financial aid to lower income students. Their interest is to recruit the smartest kids, regardless of how poor they are. In addition, you want a variety of smarts - you want poets, musicians, long distance runners, robot makers- and kids who have lived different experiences - otherwise can you imagine how boring class discussions would be?
So, it’s essential for top colleges because they want the most interesting, challenging, and ambitious kids in the world, regardless of whether their parents make $150 a month in Bangladesh or $150 an hour in Iowa.

Second, part of your premise is false: you say in your OP that you’re getting less financial aid because poor people haven’t planned well.
The living wage has been estimated for today as $11(most of the South&Midwest) to $18 an hour (for CA, NYC, Boston). In other words, if your parents make $8 an hour, the fact they haven’t saved for your college isn’t because of “poor planning”. It’s because, even if they work two jobs, not only could they not save anything at all, but buying food + paying rent and utilities consumed absolutely everything they earned. And if the car broke down or someone got sick, family members didn’t eat their fill and often heat would get turned off, you obviously couldn’t participate in any afterschool clubs because your family needed the money and you better do those hours regardless of what tests you had the next day. So, if in those conditions, you had good grades, you’ve earned the right to colleges being affordable and rewarding your hard work, intelligence, and tenacity. What kind of country could tell a kid: sure, you’re smarter, work harder, and deserve it more, but we’ll pick the kid who can afford $60,000 regardless of his qualities or lack thereof?
… Well, actually, us.
97% colleges in this country don’t “meet need”. In other words, if your family makes $25,000 a year, a college like NYU has no qualms telling you that you’ve got to pay $18,000 if you want to attend. Which is, obviously, a cruel joke (the applicant’s then supposed to tell his family: be cool and go live under bridges, and please stop eating.) This, by the way, is a real-life example.
So, if you’re lower income, you better be a super duper extraordinary student. Or you may not be able to go to college at all. Certainly, if you are, say, in the top 20% of your class and thus ineligible for the top 3% colleges, most of what upper middle class kids take for granted won’t be possible. Odds are, you’ll go where you can afford to go, regardless of where that is and whether it’s your “dream college” or even a college you wanted to go to in the first place. Odds are, you’ll commute and won’t have the “college experience”. Odds are, you’ll work more than the recommended maximum of 12-15 hours a week, and therefore will take longer to complete your degree. Odds are, because of commuting + work, you won’t be able to join clubs, societies, and participate in networking shindings that are so important to building a resume and finding a good (corporate) job. And of course you won’t be able to ask your uncle or your cousin’s neighbor about that internship program.
Note that if there were fewer people, there would be less need for financial aid. So the goal isn’t to reduce financial aid, but to reduce the number of lower-income people. And education is the best, most efficient way to do that. See how that’s a virtuous circle?
The more financial aid you provide, the fewer obstacles for smarter, hard working students to reach their potential, and the more people break the povery circle, graduate, and pay it back tenfold in taxes, volunteer hours, mentor, provide alumni donations… all of which are now paying for the Blue and Gold grants you’ll be receiving to attend UCs.

I recommend a really cool book that’ll explain this through the real-life challenges of 10 kids in NYC. Not all are good students, not all are “model students”, most though are just like you and trying to go to college. It’s called Hold fast to dreams.
http://thenewpress.com/books/hold-fast-dreams

You could also read _The New Kids _ which specifically deals with immigrants kids in NYC.
http://www.brookehauser.com/thenewkids/

42

OP, look at it this way. The colleges that are unaffordable for you but are affordable for somebody whose family may or may not work as hard or live as prudently - those schools just don’t want you. They don’t want my kids either. If they wanted you, they’d make it affordable for you. So whether people are poor via bad luck, stupid choices, just plain out laziness, or some combination of the three makes no difference to you because you can’t afford what those schools will charge you. Move on - It’s unhealthy to focus on what might have beens.

And remember, there are parents in your situation and mine who would make it work. We don’t have a government pension that we can count on. There are no inheritances coming. We’re assuming social security won’t be there. I know the only way we could make an expensive school work would be to mortgage our home or put off retirement saving. And so, our kids go to schools we can afford. I see this as a pivotal choice the colleges are giving us, “Sure, we’ll take you. IF, you put your house on the line. IF you forfeit a comfortable retirement. IF, you’ll sacrifice for US.” Some families buy into that and God bless them, they have that right. But it doesn’t seem your family is so inclined, so I recommend you opt out of the craziness. There will be plenty of decent schools where you’ll fit in just fine and who would love to have you. Go find them.

43

@halfemptypockets
Schools are businesses and need to cover expenses and build up reserves. It is not a matter of liking or not liking a particular student. Most have clear guidelines for merit and need based aid and they can’t bend them for every student they like because they cannot afford to.

I could walk into a furniture store this afternoon and charm the sales person, maybe even wear my clerical collar to merit a bit more respect but if I cannot afford the living room suites on display he cannot reduce the price below a certain level. I would have to look elsewhere.

I interned with a social service agency. People would come in for assistance and be a few dollars over the limit for assets. Often broke my heart to turn them away. Big reason I did not pursue that career but there always has to be some limit.

And low income does NOT mean those others do not work as hard or live prudently. Many low income families work very hard and are better money managers than some investment brokers! They have to plan every penny. People are not low income only for the three judgmental reasons you suggest.

44

@KKMama - I’ll give you a big Amen to the schools are businesses! Colleges can absolutely decide how they want to distribute their financial assistance dollars and if they decide not to distribute them to my kids, then all I’m saying is we’ll find some other schools who will provide an affordable education (maybe via merit). And if a furniture store wants to give the clergy a better rate (free even!) while charging me full price, then that’s their prerogative.

And while you may have had to work among the poor to realize that some of them work very, very hard - harder than I ever will - I grew up poor. I’m intimately acquainted with poverty and its hardships, thank you very much. I never said that all poor people don’t work hard. But it is also a fact that some people are low income, not through happenstance or misfortune, but through sloth or other poor choices. And that’s generally what eats higher incomed people who are annoyed about lower income people receiving the bulk of the aid dollars. So many posters here on CC love to jump on the just be grateful you’re not poor bandwagon without ever acknowledging what’s upsetting the OP in the first place. I was simply telling OP to forget about why people are poor - it doesn’t matter to him. What matters to OP is that just like he can run over to Ikea and build himself a decent, affordable piece of furniture, he can build himself a decent, affordable education.