“I also think colleges should be much more upfront with less wealthy kids about what taking a large loan will mean for their lives. Plus many adults turn out to be successful from a wide variety of majors. I know quite a number of communication majors from large schools that got jobs or internships without parental help and have gone on to be reasonably successful adults.”
I was one of those who used to turn my nose up at communication studies majors, thinking it was a bunch of nonsense. The older I am, the more I realize how wrong I was.
One of the positives I’ve seen over the decades in the workforce is meeting gems of job candidates and interns I’ve had who came out of directional universities or piecemeal college experiences that they paid for and have gone on to highly successful careers. I think early in my career I was abit of an educational snob but no longer. Drive and determination are so very important. That said it’s simply a fact that highly socialized kids from families that have a broad swath of parental friends they know well and are are comfortable contacting for “help” with the job hunt have an advantage regardless of major. You can’t really “teach” kids to be comfortable, social and how to network as they grow up, it just happens, but I do think many kids can learn those skills and signals if they have the determination to get there.
I hope I’m not repeating myself too much, but I was shocked that the less privileged women who transferred to directional universities had more successful experiences than similar women who stayed at Indiana. What are those women paying for at Indiana? Obviously, they’re not getting it. The less privileged women who stayed were worse off, *even ignoring the loans that they’d have to pay off after graduation. *
It wasn’t that the directional universities were just as good but cheaper. They were better for these women, as well as being cheaper. At the directional colleges, the transfers found women like themselves. The directional colleges were set up for people like them. Indiana, apparently, is set up for students whose parents help them navigate choices and pitfalls. Virtually all the women of all classes who stayed at Indiana and were successful had very involved parents.
This is a great book on this topic. Character and personality traits matter massively. As does support.
Getting less advantaged kids INTO college is not that hard. Getting them OUT of college is the real challenge.
We hear the inspiring “Waiting for Superman” stories about how these inner city charter schools produce these unbelievable results (and they do), like the championship chess teams and kids that get scholarships to great colleges. Turns out those kids, by and large, fail miserably at college. Once the structure and support of the charter school are removed, many of these kids struggle mightily and don’t graduate. They are plenty smart (as their charter school transcripts show) but (being under-priveleged) their internal compass and support network are often lacking. So now some of those charter schools have gotten deep into character building and intensely mentoring their graduates at college. Without doing that stuff, they are just turning out highly accomplishes college drop outs.
A+ drive and B- talent win every time over A+ talent and B- grit, character and effort.
There is a huge concern right now about unemployment and underemployment among college graduates. On this board we share a lot of opinions about the “right” way to do college and one discussion is how much a major matters. The major may matter a lot more in some groups than others. My kids had the luxury to choose any major they wished and then go on to graduate school in that area of interest, and then pretty easily find good employment. So my real life experience suggests I advise parents their kids “should pursue their bliss”. That is what the young woman I know washing dishes did and it didn’t work out well for her at all. If I had been her mom, her life path would have been much different. Even if her opportunities were necessarily going to be more limited than those available to my kids, she could have benefited from some advice about the realities of her situation. I don’t believe she ever got it. She walked into the college job advising office senior year and truly expected them to get her a job in her area of study. Some students in her situation may have been able to find that job. I think it would be highly unusual. The odds are astronomical. imho.
I am moving to the other book thread with further replies to you.
This is absolutely true. But also, B- talent and A+ parental support wins over A+ talent and B- parental support.
Another interesting book, [Our School,](http://www.amazon.com/Our-School-Inspiring-Story-Teachers/dp/B005B1AQAM) tells the story of one charter school in East San Jose exemplifying what @northwesty says. The school takes underprivileged kids and makes them work like dogs for high school success. Then (and this is mostly in the postscript of the book) the kids fail at college, because they don’t have the-- I wouldn’t call it grit, because these kids have tons of grit-- the parental support and background that their more privileged classmates have.
There are plenty of successful people with B- drive. They just don’t go into fields that require A+ drive. Most occupations do not require a driven Type A personality. Clearly, a kid without any resources need much more drive than the kid with parents who can help them get back on their feet if they fail.
I am not sure that most kids have the advantage of well connected parents who are willing to subsidize an apartment for more than a few months or who are savvy enough to hook them up with a great internship. Many kids I know come back and live at home until they can save up enough to get a cheap apartment not in the city of choice or with a lot of roommates. Some get jobs through connections, others through their own efforts. Of course that is much more challenging for poor kids, but I can’t imagine that every other girl on the floor studied was wealthy enough for mom and dad to subsidize her over the long haul. If that was the case, then I would venture to say that the group did not paint an accurate picture of most of the students at IU or any other big flagship. So is it the well connected parents, the connections forged at school, or some other factors that make the wealthy kids successful even with less desirable degrees?
There are systematic challenges for poor students. Many do not finish college because of family problems and primarily lack of money. Even with a full ride, outside expenses or the desire to help family through work can cause them to have to stop. They may have to work to afford to stay at school and the work is too much to keep up with their studies. Sometimes it is preparation. A kid that has a great GPA from a terrible high school may not have been challenged enough to know how to tackle tough classes.
Interesting CF that the kids in the Our School book were not successful in college. The reviews of that book seem to paint the picture that these kids are successful. I think this is a very important area of research and that it is critical to level the playing field for these kids.
I haven’t read the book, only the excerpts that CF posted. However, they were heart wrenching. Colleges are one of the last engines of social mobility that we have. It’s infuriating to think of these students from low SES backgrounds (many of whose families are struggling to send them to a good college) being made so much worse off instead.
I’d also like to add a few points that might caution about overgeneralizing the anecdotes from the book (I hope there is real data in the book. Frankly the excerpts read like a poignant novel and it’s really hard to know how real life data could fit the narrative so well).
Undermatching – this is currently a major topic of discussion at many colleges and in the Obama administration. It’s the result of careful work by serious researchers. What they found was that talented students (SAT > 2000) with good grades from low SES often didn’t apply to colleges which matched their aptitudes. Instead, they applied to the local four year (or two year) college near them. They found that simple interventions – like waiving application fees or having a friendly teacher encourage them to raise their sights – were all that it took for these students to also apply to schools that matched their aptitudes better. More importantly, the students benefited tremendously from attending these schools, which were often more affordable than their local school after financial aid. Attending these schools really seemed to make an enormous difference in students’ lives - truly the best of what higher education is about.
There are open questions as to whether this applies just to those attending top 50 schools or whether it applies more broadly. I haven’t seen studies covering average aptitude students. My only point though is that having low SES students go to directional schools may not be the right answer in general.
Overmatching – conversely, it seems to me that some of the low SES women being profiled might have been overmatched – i.e. they come from poor academic backgrounds relative to the school / major they chose. The high SES women on the party track may be academically unmotivated, but because of their upbringing (or genetics) many are actually pretty smart. Their grades and scores reflect them working at 50% potential. They can breeze through the general education requirements without doing much work and easily get a B, while a low SES student can’t. The low SES students assigned to the “party” dorm feel dumb, see their peers partying it up in an easy major, and want to switch to fashion design or whatever. It could be that the directional schools are best for these students, or simply being assigned to a better dorm.
Frankly, it seems to me that some of the high SES women being profiled are going to finishing school. It’s just that in upper middle class families the finishing school has to award a B.A. or else these women will be shut off from the part of the marriage market they want to access. Why Indiana should be running a finishing school for (say) 15% of their students is a damn good question.
Advising – it would be good to collect and publish worthwhile statistics on employment outcomes by school, major, GPA. Academia resists this but too bad. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect schools to provide the kind of advising that’s been discussed. Too many conflicts of interest – no advisor is going to say “these 15 majors that we’re offering are jokes. And you’re too poor to major in these easy departments.”
Personally, when people who I know socially ask me for advice I’m also reluctant to tell them what I really think. First, I rarely know all the relevant facts. But second, I don’t want to crush their dreams or be too judgmental. But when it comes to my own kids I judge the hell out of everything – “I’m not paying 200,000 for you to waste your potential by majoring in recreation, gender studies, etc”.
Telling people the unpleasant truth is kinder rather than have them mess up their lives. But low SES students often don’t have people they can turn to for this kind of good, honest advice.
Mom2and, I recommend the book to you. You’d like it, I think.
Realize that the dorm the researchers picked was not a random dorm. They intentionally picked a “party dorm.” What clearly happened was the wealthy out-of-state students who were in that dorm intentionally picked it because it offered easy access to the party scene: every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, fraternity cars driven by pledges would line up in front of that dorm (but not other dorms) to pick up freshman women and take them to fraternity parties.
The most affluent women ended up in the party dorm by choice, but the less affluent mostly ended up there by chance.
The researchers divided up women in the study by the pathway they chose: the party path, the (blocked) mobility path, and the professional path. Of the 47 women in the study, 16 chose the party path: 4 from upper class families (daughters of CEOs or CFOs), 8 from upper middle class families, 4 from middle class families. All of the 4 richest women in this group succeeded after college, with considerable help from their families; all of the 4 poorest of the group did not succeed after college. And remember, these were not working class women; they were daughters of teachers and sales managers. But teachers and sales managers can’t pay for their daughters to move to San Francisco or Los Angeles, or find them low-skill, high-visibility jobs at sports franchises or TV stations.
None of the lower middle or working class women on the dorm floor chose the party path; they could not possibly have afforded the money or the time required for such a path. Most of the lower middle and all of the working class women worked during college, most of them for many hours a week. In contrast, none of the upper middle or middle class women worked during college.
Then a very small sample size indeed. Many daughters of CEOs or equivalent that are highly driven are not likely to be going to IU or if going there to be on the party path. I will see if I can get it from the library. But really impossible to know how accurate the analysis is on the basis of outcomes for 16 kids. Plus, if this was during the recession, it was incredibly difficult for many kids, even those not on the party path, to get jobs.
A good jumping off point for discussion and more research however. But it sounds like 2/3 of the women on the party floor did not choose the party path. Do they report on how they did? So the poor kids were not really poor, just lower middle class or working class? Sorry, know I can find out for myself if I read the book but not going to happen in the next day or so.
They were. They had the knowledge to pick the dorms that would further their social ambitions, and they did so. In some cases, their parents pulled strings to put them in that dorm. I’m sure those same parents would make sure their academically focused sisters were placed in a dorm with students who cared about academic achievement.
Frankly, the socialites and wannabes in the study were horrible people. They were vapid, mean, selfish, self-absorbed, oblivious and anti-intellectual. They made life on the dorm floor much much worse for the unfortunate women who inadvertently ended up there with them, and who didn’t have enough knowledge to get away. Indiana University has no business running a finishing school for out of state young women who want to polish their social skills so they can marry rich men.
My kids both graduated from USC. There’s A LOT MORE there than just Greek life and hooking up. As far as I know, neither of my kids were involved in either of those and both found their group and enjoyed their years at USC.
The issues mentioned are NOT specific to USC–I’m quite sure they apply to MANY, many campuses. At larger Us, like USC where there are a LOT of other things to do, I think the pressure to conform and be part of the Greek scene is much less than in smaller campuses where pretty much the entire social scene revolves around Greek life. H was active in Ultimate Frisbee, Rock Climbing, engineering, dorm and intramural activities, and other activities. D was active in fencing, polo, the Hawaii club and lots of other things. Each of them attended one or more Greek parties with friends they stuck with throughout the evening. Neither of them have mentioned any sexual assaults to us. They were always very careful about their surroundings and how much they drank and who they hung out with before and while drinking.
Al – the “How Children Succeed” book has an extensive discussion of the under and over-matching issues when low SES kids go to college. Both can undermine college success of low SES kids. Under-matching is a surprisingly negative thing.
Fang – this book is mostly about parenting and it advocates strongly for the “resiliency” style. Most of the efforts of the charter schools and mentoring programs are trying to overcome the profound effects of a bad family situation. Interestingly, it also talks a lot about the drawbacks of high SES helicopter parenting. The same grit/resiliency/character program described in the book is used by BOTH some inner city charter schools and a super-fancy expensive college prep private school. But the problems of the low SES kids are much bigger than the well off kids.
Great stat from that book. HS drop outs who get GEDs have higher IQs than kids from similar backgrounds who get regular HS degrees. But on a go-forward basis, the GED kids have the exact same outcomes as kids who never get a HS degree at all. The regular HS degree kids do much better than the GED kids despite being less smart. Why? Sticking with it to get a regular HS degree correlates with much better self-control, grit, drive and ambition. That turns out to be way way more important than the difference in IQ points.
The other two paths were the strivers on the mobility pathway, and the achievers and underachievers on the professional pathway. The strivers were lower-middle and working class women trying to move up to the middle class. They came from underperforming high schools, so they were not well prepared for college and had to take remedial classes. They had to work long hours, cutting in to their study time. Their parents didn’t know enough to help them navigate college. For example, the socialites’ parents knew to have their daughters take “hard” required classes over the summer or at another college, but the strivers’ parents didn’t. (Not that I would agree that any of the socialites’ classes were “hard,” but some of them required actual studying.)
Of the strivers, only one, “Valerie,” the woman who was “creamed” into a special program for higher-achieving lower-income students, stayed at Indiana and ended up on a career path that would potentially put her in the middle class. The other four strivers who were headed up to the middle class succeeded by leaving Indiana for directional colleges. Other than Valerie, the strivers who stayed at Indiana did not fare so well. Having chosen majors more appropriate for the finishing school group, they tended to end back at home with their parents, with loans to pay off and low paying jobs with low advancement possibilities.
I am ok with fluffy majors. I am ok with students going to finishing schools. People have varied interests and capabilities.
The social aspect of college tends to get overlooked. Learning to interact with your peers is important. Understanding how others think is invaluable. At 20 years of age a person is trying to figure out who he or she is…
I don’t like the falling through the cracks issue… Or the lack of support some of these students receive.
And schools should do more to help students make the transition out of college. Some of the career counseling centers do a poor job.
How many 20 year olds know what life has to offer? A little guidance can go a long way…
I expected to see drawbacks from helicopter parenting in Paying for the Party, but none were there to be seen in this particular group. It was obvious that the women with helicopter parents were better off.
A friend owns a very successful clothing line, and his daughter specifically chose apparel merchandising at IU (they told us it was a top program), so she could follow in her university-educated father’s footsteps.
I don’t have a problem with kids choosing apparel merchandising or tourism, even if they don’t come from those backgrounds. The need for clothing is never going to go away; there will always be jobs in that industry. Tourism seems like a solid industry too, with global job potential.