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<p>You are the one who used the word obligation. The school has no OBLIGATION to a low SES student beyond what it has for any other student.</p>
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<p>Yeah I had the same feeling. </p>
<p>This smells to me like we arent getting the full story. Its wasnt just that she didnt open the emails in time. Otherwise she’d just be a upper middle class kid with $60K in loans to get her degree from Emory. There had to be a series of flubs along the way to get her to the point where she was failing and ducking calls from the professor. Too much partying? Drug use? 7 page article and they didnt have space to be a little more critical? I like they way This American Life at least probes the other side even while they spoon feed a specific storyline. </p>
<p>I am not excusing Emory but I doubt it is all as simple as “this happened to me” and “then this happened to me”. Like I said upthread, I think there is too much focus on just getting to college as the goal. In reality then is when the student needs to be most alert.</p>
<p>Has anyone had a chance to read through the 1300 or so comments to the article on the NYT website? I haven’t, but would be curious if there are any other arguments that differ from the comments bantered here.</p>
<p>Maybe any student getting any kind of aid (merit/need based, grant/work study, etc) should be REQUIRED to attend a mandatory on campus presentation or webinar or something befor the money is applied to their account. That might help. My s had to complete a form every year in order to get the NMS money for the next year. You don’t give them the info they need, you don’t get the $$. Simple.</p>
<p>The author must have reached out to her community and to the head of that Upward Bound program to get the names of students with the most compelling stories. I agree that the Emory student’s story seems to have some inconsistencies (ie the mom was described as such a harsh, almost cruel person that the dau refers to her as “Mrs. Lady”, yet “Mrs. Lady” took the time and energy to drive her from TX to GA to get settled into school; that no one but her (the student) was surprised when her BF shafted her and may have gotten into drugs or something, etc.) </p>
<p>I happen to know personally the professor described in that article. She can be tough, but she is kind and caring. I would believe that she did what she could, within the limits of the rules of what she can make extensions/exceptions for without being inconsistent or unfair to other students, and tried to help this student in the article. If you bend the rules too much, other students can rightfully complain to the Dean of unfair treatment, file a complaint, etc. It opens up another whole can of worms.</p>
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<p>My D’s LAC is a pretty darn elite one, that I think offers opportunities to open whole new worlds out to young women of great potential. I recognize you’d be happy with your child’s entire student body consisting of kids who have already been raised with all the advantages (preferably upper middle class) and who have already “succeeded,” but I think having a few diamonds in the rough is just fine, too. Unlike you, I don’t want to write off the bright girl from rural Mississippi from a cruddy high school just because she didn’t have the benefit of being able to go above algebra in her high school and my upper middle class suburban kid did. </p>
<p>I guess it’s whether you see college as job-prep-for-my-own-kid-elbow-the-other-kids-out-of-the-way or as a means of opening opportunities to many.</p>
<p>"I agree that the Emory student’s story seems to have some inconsistencies (ie the mom was described as such a harsh, almost cruel person that the dau refers to her as “Mrs. Lady”, yet “Mrs. Lady” took the time and energy to drive her from TX to GA to get settled into school; that no one but her (the student) was surprised when her BF shafted her and may have gotten into drugs or something, etc.) "</p>
<p>Actually that was the other girl, Melissa’s bf. Angelica is Fred’s, who comes across as a stand up guy. He is the one who signed the loan for her and drove her to Atlanta. And he got her a job at the family store and drove her back home after her final year. He is in the video with her so Mrs. Lady must be warming up to him somewhat. Otherwise those would be some uncomfortable car rides.</p>
<p>Edmund Glaeser, economics professor at Harvard, has responded to the NYT article by suggesting that colleges that enroll Pell Grant recipients who do not graduate and get a “decent” job face financial penalties.</p>
<p>[College</a> debts but no degree? Reform the Pell grant program - Opinion - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/27/college-debts-but-degree-reform-pell-grant-program/h2z0hzLJb8E09heW2fqQxH/story.html]College”>http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/12/27/college-debts-but-degree-reform-pell-grant-program/h2z0hzLJb8E09heW2fqQxH/story.html)</p>
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<p>What’s a “decent” job?</p>
<p>“Edmund Glaeser, economics professor at Harvard, has responded to the NYT article by suggesting that colleges that enroll Pell Grant recipients who do not graduate and get a “decent” job face financial penalties.”</p>
<p>Sounds like an interesting approach. I agree with Glaser’s point that college have to be “at risk” too in terms of providing value for the money they are receiving. </p>
<p>But there would have to be an approach that separates the admissions decision from the type of payment. We dont want college refusing or disadvantaging Pell students because they might not get the second part of the payment.</p>
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<p>Proudpatriot, I didn’t say it did.</p>
<p>As for your other point about financial aid “driving up costs for everyone else,” I don’t think you can fairly say that. What you describe is the controversial “Bennett hypothesis.” In truth there are many, many factors contributing to skyrocketing tuition costs. It seems the long-term solution is to get more people educated so they can make higher incomes and thus have less need for financial aid. Again, stagnant wages and declining property values have taken a huge hit on people’s ability to pay. I’d think someone like you would support giving people a hand up so they can attain the social mobility that is supposed to be the hallmark of our economic system. If that “hand up” consists of financial aid and support services, fine.</p>
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<p>Purely to play devil’s advocate, why not? If a college decides it doesn’t want to admit poorer students, or it only wants full-pay students, don’t they have that right? (Just like they can decide they don’t want anyone with SAT’s under X, or they don’t want to consider essays or extracurriculars) If I’m reading Beliavsky right, wouldn’t he or she say - why not?</p>
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<p>How do you “realize” these things about people you haven’t even met?</p>
<p>Kids accepted into so called elite schools should be elite students. There are elite students in poor schools. If a student needs some sort of intense preparation for a college then they don’t belong at that school. </p>
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<p>I don’t want to write off anyone. If your rural girl needs a few entry level classes then she should take them. She shouldn’t need some sort of intensive preparation to do so.</p>
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<p>I guess I have to admit that I see education as a product that I expect to purchase for the benefit of my kids. I don’t need to elbow anyone else out of the way but really it’s my job to provide for my family. I don’t expect others to do it and I don’t expect to provide an education for the masses.</p>
<p>I believe in charity but I like to make my own choices about what charities I support.</p>
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<p>Just out of curiosity, did you send your children to private schools (elem/high school) and if so did you resent paying public school taxes that you weren’t using? Do you resent paying taxes to support your state university if your kids don’t go there?</p>
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<p>My kids go to/went to a charter elementary and private secondary school. I do not resent paying taxes as I believe that every child is entitled to a K-12 education through the public system. I don’t think anyone should be denied a basic education.</p>
<p>I also support a strong public university system. I think that the opportunity to attend a university should be accessible to all students. My middle son is very interested in Florida State.</p>
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If you think college makes most people more productive, yes, but not if you think college-educated people earn more on average mostly because of signaling, as economist Bryan Caplan
[Is</a> Rising Education a Symptom of Progress? | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty](<a href=“http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/04/is_rising_educa.html]Is”>Is Rising Education a Symptom of Progress? - Econlib)
or Charles Murray have written about, and if you believe that most people do not have the intelligence to study at the college level.</p>
<p>One of the smartest guys I know, now an EE professor, only took one science class in HS in Oklahoma because that was all they offered. 90% of college success is just showing up. I think what is most telling in the Emory story is that she partied too much and stopped going to classes. </p>
<p>My wife was in charge of one of these EOP programs for a semester while the administrator was on maternity leave. The students, overall, had about the same GPA and graduation rates as the general population. Similarly, their fail-out rates were about the same too. The difference for these students was that progress reports were sent to the office by their instructors so that someone could intervene at the first sign of problems. Students who no longer wanted to participate in academics had to ACTIVELY avoid the intervention by not answering their phones or emails and not going to class. I see her story as a retelling of some that my wife had while working with kids from similar backgrounds.</p>
<p>The story could have been written about a girl who was given a chance and blew it by partying. She was screwed by Fin Aid, though, and that was not right.</p>
<p>Re: [Is</a> Rising Education a Symptom of Progress?, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty](<a href=“http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/04/is_rising_educa.html]Is”>Is Rising Education a Symptom of Progress? - Econlib)</p>
<p>The model does not seem to be anywhere close to reality.</p>
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<li><p>IQ is not uniformly distributed between A and 100+A, for some value of A>=0 (and this model places the median at 100 only if A=50).</p></li>
<li><p>Worker productivity is not solely based on IQ (especially considering the different jobs and different dimensions of intelligence), nor is it necessarily proportional to IQ even if one assumes that it is solely based on IQ.</p></li>
<li><p>There are plenty of other signaling methods in employment.</p></li>
<li><p>Even if the employer cannot predict individual productivity before hiring, it can adjust pay after observing actual productivity after hiring.</p></li>
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<p>But don’t you see…higher-income families ARE providing “intense preparation” for their kids before they get to college. The best preschools. The best public or private K-12 schools. The Kumon classes. The SAT tutors, and the money to pay for as many retakes as necessary to get to the optimal score. The college counselors. Parents who are home in the evenings and available to help with homework rather than working a night shift or out of the picture entirely. Lower-income families cannot offer such preparation before their kids get to college. But this does not mean their kids cannot succeed with appropriate support.</p>
<p>Really? Preschool??? Be serious.</p>
<p>This thread has been an eye-opener for me.</p>
<p>Discounted airline tickets were discussed, and this analogy came to mind. Being resentful of a poor student getting the aid needed to attend the college you are paying full tuition for is like being envious of the person sitting next to you on the plane who was given a bereavement fare while you paid full fare.</p>
<p>It’s not the same thing at all.</p>