<p>What programs are there to help low income students? I know only of Questbridge. Links would also be helpful.</p>
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<p>You make a fair point, but IMO, “the admin” is also part of the educational process. </p>
<p>btw: if you want to slice and dice expenses, one could easily reduce cafeteria/food service costs by not paying a ‘living wage’. One could reduce capital expenditures by eliminating the rush to build “green” buildings, which are extremely expensive. Just two examples of probably hundreds, all of which are approved by “admin”.</p>
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<p>Some “green” features are cost effective in reducing ongoing utility costs (and may also improve comfort within the building). Of course, the choices made in this respect may be different if one looks purely at the lifecycle cost and practical value of the “green” features, versus adding additional “green” features for the purpose of marketing the “greenness” of the building.</p>
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<p>Some old-school basic stuff like insulation, sure; but those capital expenditures that achieve a LEED ‘gold’-star rating will likely never be recouped (by any rational assumptions), but they do add significantly to construction costs of an individual building. Instead of chasing LEED ‘stars’ to plug on its website, a college could spend that extra money building even more buildings, or upgrading existing ones, making them more “comfortable”.</p>
<p>btw: is it even reasonable for a college to chase LEED ratings, thus jacking up the COA, when it doesn’t meet full need? Doesn’t that make it even harder for low income students to attend (the topic of this thread)?</p>
<p>Regardless, the broader point is that we could take a sample of a 100 folks on cc, and each put together a list of what we consider ‘wasteful’ spending by the college “Admin.” But, I would guess that most lists would be significantly different. :)</p>
<p>I am an international student from a low-income family, I am applying to colleges this year. I have always been afraid that my parents would say a firm “No” to college in US but they said yes. I’m having a pretty hard time paying for examinations and score reporting but both me and my parents think that this money is not wasted, it is kind of an investment in the better future. Not giving your child a chance to go to college is a very bad idea, because every parent should be trying to give their children every opportunity they can, added that college can be free for those in need.</p>
<p>Please understand that not all colleges “can be” free. Many families are surprised at what little funding their kids get- or how the family portion of costs can still be a stretch. I hope you are carefully identifying US colleges that do offer aid to intls and which are “need aware” for intls.</p>
<p>ucb, are you positing that the median household in the US is currently middle class? I was referencing “middle-low class” families that consider themselves middle class but have actually fallen out of that lifestyle due to income changes. I don’t believe $50K/year is middle class, regardless of median income.</p>
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<p>What do you define as “middle class”, and what income level do you think is needed to be “middle class”.</p>
<p>According to <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/22/what-does-middle-class-mean-today/who-should-be-the-judge-of-middle-class[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/12/22/what-does-middle-class-mean-today/who-should-be-the-judge-of-middle-class</a> , about half of Americans self-identify as “middle class”, rising to 9 in 10 if one includes “upper middle class” and “lower middle class”.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if it takes significantly higher income than the median to be “middle class”, then the future of the country might not look to optimistic with a majority who is “poor” (even if you are not poor, a society in which the majority is poor may be less pleasant to live in).</p>
<p>Maybe “middle class” is a social construct.<br>
The Census doesn’t define it based on income and tends to look at households. 50k is grand for a recent grad, living for himself. Not so great after kids and bills.</p>
<p>And, many of the opinions on that 50k median do point out that the difficulties in looking at that optimistically.</p>
<p>I see that this discussion has taken on a whole new color… but I wanted to go back to what the original thread was all about.</p>
<p>DD is URM/1st generation/low SES. I asked if she would have a problem with going to an elite school with students who come from high SES, her response was no. She stated that they are people just like she is and the only difference is that they can afford more expensive toys/clothes/cars etc. And she felt that they are no better/smarter than she is. She says its only money. </p>
<p>She reminded me that she did the summer program at Choate in 2011 and mixed in nicely with students from all races/ethnicities/socio-ecom rungs/religions and had no issues and everyone enjoyed each others company tremendously and sobbed on the last day of the program and were very sad to leave one another. They still keep in touch via Skype from all over the world. She has no interest in HBCU’s or state schools whatsoever. Spelman gets a little nod just b/c I want her to apply.</p>
<p>Not sure if college is a totally different ballgame. But for her, she has no issues with applying to elite schools because of her background. Not sure if the study is a bunch of malarky or maybe I have just raised her differently than most URM/low SES/1st generation kids.</p>
<p>Just my 0.02</p>
<p>bluebayou wrote:
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<p>I’ll bite:</p>
<p>“Media Centers” - in many cases just an excuse to build a new library that adds not a single additional volume of stack space but will usually come pimped out with a Starbucks in the lobby.</p>
<p>Brand New Freshmen Dorms - especially, if the school hasn’t expanded in fifty years; the brand new freshman dorm is often an excuse to recreate the comforts of home so that DS or DD never have to room with with someone they don’t know or do without a plasma television for a year. Crappy freshman dorms are a right of passage and should probably be a requirement before raising tuition.</p>
<p>“Writing Instructors” - didn’t that used to be the job of professors? You write a paper; they give you enough Cs until you give them what they want. That’s how most people learned to write in college.</p>
<p>“Wellness Deans” - new euphemism for phys ed. teachers and another perk for recuited athletes.</p>
<p>That’s my list. Any others?</p>
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<p>You are a parent that knows about, or has made it your business to find out about, a lot of great academic opportunities for your D. I think that may be somewhat unique.</p>
<p>(not on CC of course, but in the real world)</p>
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And we used to walk five miles in the snow to get from the dorm to class–uphill both ways. By cracky, these youngsters of today have it too easy.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s all kid stuff. My alma mater has an 18-hole PGA golf course, and multiple hot tubs. </p>
<p>What they don’t have is even a single doc who is willing to treat dozens of sometimes dangerously inebriated students at night.</p>
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My alma mater has that…that’s good, I guess.</p>
<p>[I can see why a whole segment of society is going to need online ed- to get away from all those wasteful perks like a dorm that meets code. What you see, driving by, is not always the whole truth.]</p>
<p>I guess one question I have behind this thread is what the role of a state university should be, with respect to low income kids. There is uneven quality among these schools. At some, you can get in with a C average in hs, others are nationally respected. Should we set aside some C kids, in favor of stronger- and then give better finaid to the lowest income folks? Follow a state like Va, with a primo flagship, near impossible to get into, but with a guaranteed transfer program from a list of cc’s?</p>
<p>Re: #196</p>
<p>Big states may have lots of state universities of varying levels of selectivity. Consider California with over 30 four year state universities. Virginia has a decent number of state universities as well. Smaller states may have fewer state universities where a state university that is not all that selective at the baseline may have offerings for the full range of students from the “barely got in” to the top students. Arizona, with three state universities, appears to have Arizona State University in this model.</p>
<p>But many states have a well-defined community college to state university transfer route for students whose high school academic credentials were not sufficient to go to a state university as a freshmen. In other words, another chance, provided one does well in community college.</p>
<p>OSU has a couple of regional campuses that are, if not open enrollment, certainly much easier to get into than OSU main campus. 2 years there and you are guaranteed a transfer to main campus if you have the GPA.</p>
<p>Main campus kids get a little huffy about that in my experience, but it is a great route for later academic bloomers to go.</p>
<p>It all depends on the environment that you’re in in high school. The MAJORITY (56-60% ?) of students at my school are on free/reduced lunch, which says something on its own. However, it’s a VERY affluent town with 5 private high schools, so a few of the kids are really wealthy as well. </p>
<p>My parents are really poor (1st gen immigrants, 30k -ish income in a large city), and I didn’t grow up in the best neighborhood, but there are A LOT of students like me, so I never felt a pressure to mask intelligence. Of course, classmates sometimes tease each other about extremely high grades, but these are AP students after all XD. </p>
<p>I hear about schools where the counselors advise against students applying to the top schools (Ivies, Amherst, UChicago, Stanford) and I never had that said to me. Is it a little idealistic or naive? Maybe. But there are always a few students that get into Ivies top 25s. Last year, a kid got into Stanford on a full ride through QuestBridge (a program for poor disadvantaged students). </p>
<p>I know people that are applying to 5 Ivies, and I’m (only 
)applying to Dartmouth, Cornell, UChicago, Amherst, Weslean, etc, and I never seriously worried about paying (even though I probably should be). Do I get uneasy when I see tuition that’s more than my family’s income? Sure, but I’ve found that your high school’s resources matter more than income (though richer people tend to have more resources…)</p>
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<p>There is a noticeable disdain among some posters of those who took this route or the similar CC -> state flagship route, since the usual assumption is that these students are “lower quality” students based on their worse high school records. But, as you say, they can be late bloomers who are every bit as capable as others, once they have “bloomed”. There are also other somewhat non-traditional students who got their starts at CCs.</p>
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