“Yes!!. - And working class women were shut out in that environment.”
Not if they have the assets.
What’s it to them if a certain segment of students view their time in college as a party? (especially if it’s helping offset the costs of those who need financial help) The consequences are borne by the students.
The article linked in #77 claims that the fraternities and sororities, at only 17% of the students at that midwestern university that is presumed here to be Indiana, have a rather exaggerated influence on social life and even academic life (article mentions a math exam was rescheduled to avoid conflict with sorority rush).
One of the authors is at UC Merced. Seems like many of the suggestions would make a university more like UC Merced.
- Better affordability, at least for in-state students. UCM: 61% Pell, versus 15% at Indiana.
- Fewer out-of-state and international students. UCM: hardly any, versus 43% at Indiana.
- Less fraternity/sorority influence. UCM: about 10% participation.
- Less emphasis on sports. UCM: NAIA.
- Fewer "easy pathway majors". UCM: all majors listed at https://www.ucmerced.edu/academics-undergraduate-majors-minors .
- Mobility pathway, transferable courses. UCM: articulation from community colleges listed at http://www.assist.org .
- No legacy preference in admissions. UCM: legacy not considered, versus considered at Indiana.
- Easier to get into any major. UCM: currently it looks like all majors just need sufficient prerequisites with 2.0 GPA and/or C grades.
According to the book, the negative consequences are borne by the working class students. In the party dorm, no working class students graduate in five years, the length of the study.
According to the book, the party parthway is advantageous to the affluent students. They do graduate.
I quoted the authors in post #71. It’s a thought provoking book.
https://www.amazon.com/Paying-Party-College-Maintains-Inequality/dp/0674049578
It’s available on Amazon, probably in most local libraries as well.
@ucbalumnus, yep, yet it seems like every single CA kid on CC, even if they are from low SES, tries to avoid UC Merced if at all possible.
I think I get your point, I kind of hope I don’t.
But the working class girls didn’t have the $ to join sororities and associated costs and, as I recall, one of them did try and had a pretty awful experience.
True (probably because of the usual ranking/selectivity focus that most students have), although other UCs have those desired-by-the-authors characteristics to various degrees greater than Indiana does.
The current liberal arts thread on this board touched on the topic of acquiring additional skills that would render a student more attractive for internships and permanent employment. I think this is the most difficult challenge for less wealthy students. D just corresponded with 2 alumnae working in her prospective field through a campus networking program in order to ask for career advice. Thankfully, that networking opportunity was made available and she did receive helpful replies.
However, both women suggested D acquire as many ancillary skills and certifications as possible in order to make herself stand out–perhaps doing so by taking summer classes at a community college. The problem is we’re already paying a hefty bill for her 4-year college, she already did several summers of unpaid work and she is giving up this summer’s earnings to take a practicum summer course (only offered in the summer) that everyone in the major needs to graduate. At some point she needs to start earning some money! Yet just to land an unpaid internship she needs these special skills and her liberal arts college simply doesn’t offer training in the handling of hazardous materials, or using industry-specific database or photography editing programs–forget about forklift operation, which was one suggestion made by the alum. It would be great if D could learn at least the technology stuff on the job, but no, it’s a requirement to even get the job. The old Catch-22 that you need experience to get a job, but can’t get a job without experience.
I don’t know that this is the college’s problem, but the fact is that a bachelor’s degree is often not enough in today’s economy and yet it requires a significant financial outlay which makes additional spending impossible for people like us.
Unfortunately, it seems that a BA/BS degree as a credential is becoming more necessary, but not sufficient, for many jobs that may not actually require the specific or general skills and knowledge indicated. Because of the cost, that reduces opportunities for those with less wealthy parents.
^ A U of London bachelor’s degree costs less than $10K total.
Many CC’s are affordable and most people in this country can find an affordable 4-year college they can commute too as well.
@concerndad
“I’ve seen low-income students attending great Big Ten universities for nearly free and they can’t muster the motivation to attend class, study, ask for help. Everyone thinks they’ve earned a right to party and goof off with their new independence, even if the university did them a favor by admitting them with bottom decile stats and showered them with grants and scholarships.”
There are layers to this.
- "Everyone thinks they've earned a right..." That is a ridiculous exaggeration and stereotype.
- Yes, this happens in individual cases. I would not even be surprised if it happens at higher rates than with the middle-class students. However, we need to consider why it happens.
Middle-class students tend to attend high schools where they are very challenged, expected to prepare large amounts of homework every day, and have worked with many tutors and had concierge parents guiding them every step of the way.In contrast, some low-income students may be bright but haven’t been challenged very much, haven’t had much homework, never had a tutor and much less guidance. They may have no idea about how college works, what they need to do, when they need help, or how to get it.
What you are seeing is the cost of a system that fails to address differences in how students are guided and developed at an early age. Since the system is broken at an earlier age, the solution at the college level is not to stop admitting students, it is to provide them with guidance to help them develop the skills they need and increase their success rates.
This is why some universities require these students to attend a prep program on campus for several weeks during the summer before they begin as freshmen. That allows the university to work with the students to fill in any critical knowledge they may not have, help them to develop the skills that they will need to be successful, get them off to a solid start in their courses, and to learn how to use the resources around them effectively when they struggle.
The cost to break the poverty cycle is much less than the costs of many lifetimes of public assistance, higher crime rates, and higher incarceration rates.
There are schools that handle this better than others (and “others” would seem to include the P4tP school, IU-B).
Some offer funding so students can take unpaid internships and research opportunities and still earn the money they need to live, pay their student contribution, etc. Some don’t limit that to one summer, either.
I gotta ask though - what is your D’s major that knowing how to drive a forklift will help??
"There are schools that handle this better than others (and “others” would seem to include the P4tP school, IU-B).
Some offer funding so students can take unpaid internships and research opportunities and still earn the money they need to live, pay their student contribution, etc. Some don’t limit that to one summer, either."
Uh, yeah. The schools that do that tend to be rich privates with a massive endowment per student. I’m sure IU would love to institute the same type of program is they had Harvard’s (or even Yale’s) endowment per student. Anybody mind donating a few billion to IU so that they can start some program like this?
@ucbalumnus You left off a couple items in your comparison:
USNews ranking:
UC Merced: 165 (as 10th ranked college in the state? 15th?)
Indiana: 90 (as the flagship of its state – one of them anyway if you look at the discipline split with Purdue)
In-State tuition:
UC Merced: $13,598
Indiana: $10,258
Any family that makes too much to qualify for Pell grants can easily afford an extra $12k/kid over four years, right? Maybe that is how the authors of the study defined “wealthy?”
Athletics
The revenues of Indiana’s athletic department exceed its expenses (in 2014 anyway according to the article linked below). Indiana doesn’t have great athletic teams but they are members of a conference that makes a lot of money. I couldn’t find any info on the athletic department of UC Merced but my guess is it operates at a loss. If Indiana were more like UC Merced in terms of athletics (or even if IU just dropped out of the Big10), Indiana likely becomes less affordable (it then becomes like most colleges that must subsidize the athletic department). And that is without addressing (in the near term anyway at least) covering infrastructure costs for existing athletic facilities that are to be paid over time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/sports/wp/2015/11/23/running-up-the-bills/?utm_term=.707f7b71d7b0
The greek life parts of that article #77 are laughable. And that is coming from someone who doesn’t like greek life. Never pledged or rushed or whatever its called or even set foot in a frat or sorority. Think they are all pretty dumb actually. But I would expect that greek life will punch above its weight on just about every campus that has greek life in terms of social activity based on organization alone. But Indiana has about 33,000 undergrads. At 17% greek, there are more than 27,000 undergrads who aren’t part of greek life. The university has 750 student clubs/organizations. Guess I find that hard to believe there are 27,000 undergrads with no social lives (and is contrary to what I hear from IU grads I know). A math test was re-scheduled to avoid a conflict with sorority rush? Oh the horrors. Should have given the non greek kids an extra day of studying.
Its often tempting to pick and choose for change that which we don’t like thinking the rest will remain the same. But reality is all of those things are interrelated and thus changing one results in changes in others. Seems to me that is what the authors of the study are doing here. I would like to think they wouldn’t say Indiana should strive to be more like UC Merced but based on the article above, maybe they would. At least they aren’t economics professors.
It takes money but it also takes prioritizing that.
Colleges with relatively low endowments manage this. Conn College and Denison are two I think of off the top of my head.
No lazy river or climbing walls though, it’s about priorities, to a degree.
@OHMomof2: But first, it takes money before you can set priorities.
Conn College’s endowment per student is roughly 3 times IU’s. Denison’s endowment per student is roughly 7 times IU’s. Denison actually is high up there when you rank by endowment per student, so they’re an especially bad example to use.
Does IU even have climbing walls and lazy rivers? Even if they do, however, if those things attract full-pay OOS students, they pay for themselves. Grants to fin aid recipients don’t. Again, I’m sure IU would really appreciate it if you donate to them enough money to triple their endowment (to where they are at least at the level of Conn College). You could even stipulate that all that money is to fund grants for poor students and I’m positive that they would still take it.
I get that state schools are not well funded for their stated missions - that’s a major conclusion of the study - this is what happens when state U funding is cut. They have to bring in OOS/international full pays and cater to their wants.
And yes, IU has a climbing wall. https://imu.indiana.edu/activities/outdoor-adventures/bouldering-wall.html
OHMomof2, D is an archaeology major with an interest in museum collections work as well. Apparently one sometimes needs to move large artifacts!
Wow, that’s fascinating! I’d have thought more stuff like cataloging items and stuff, using Excel and things like that.
By happenstance, in the last couple of days I have read two journalistic pieces that very much dovetail with the themes of this thread.
The first was the long, detailed, and incredibly sad New York Time article about the life and death of Nakesha Williams. She was a low-income African-American woman who went to Williams on financial aid and did well there. She subsequently became mentally ill and homeless. People from her network at Williams, and other people who met her on the streets of Manhattan and responded to her intelligence and love of literature, went to extraordinary lengths to try to help her, ultimately to no avail. One of the themes of the article is that there’s just no substitute for support from an engaged family. Her mother had died while she was in college; her father – also her abuser – had decamped long before that. Without a functioning family network, she was vulnerable in ways no social network could address.
The second was an article in the current Philadelphia Magazine about Penn’s current policy on parties, and its ramped-up enforcement program. I had missed this completely, but apparently Penn – long considered “the social Ivy,” with a very strong work-hard, party-hearty culture – is taking a very aggressive stance towards restricting undergraduate parties. Undergraduates are required to pre-register (with meaningful fees) off-campus as well as on-campus parties, even if they are purely among friends and not tied to any organization. More importantly, enforcement personnel reporting to Penn security monitor registered parties, making certain, for example, that no alcohol is served to underage students. What’s more, they ■■■■■ the University City neighborhood around Penn looking for signs of unregistered parties involving Penn students and shutting them down. (A “party” seems to be, at a minimum, more than five people in an apartment whose names are not on the lease.) Predictably, student opinions differ as to whether this is a good thing or the worst thing ever in the history of the world. But it’s fascinating that a college whose image and market identity is somewhat bound up with a tradition of parties is going to such lengths to change, not just its image, but actual student behavior of the type that has gone on for centuries.