Somewhere there is probably a state U where this isn’t the case, (perhaps Georgia State rather than UGA), but in general I agree with this.
The unfortunate thing is not very many low income kids get to be there to appreciate that community.
Take away schools and replace them with cars. Then this conversation looks like this: Those who believe the elites are the only way to succeed in life are like folks who insist that their precious children absolutely NEED a Rolls Royce. No, sorry, the Mercedes won’t do. Accura or Toyota? PLEASE. And don’t even mention the Huyndai, no one knows how to spell it anyway.
Of course, if you’re poor, you’re going to feel… out of place in the Rolls. That’s a problem.
And if you’re rich, it’s going to be so devastating to pretend that the Mercedes or (gasp!) Toyota can actually take you from point A to point B.
Yes, I’m convinced. Our children need Rolls Royces because it will be USED AGAINST THEM if we force them into something lower class.
Lol. Hyundai.
Speaking of cars, some of the richest families I know gave their kids old beaters. It’s kind of nouveau riche to insist on spending more because you have more.
Maybe this thread is really more referring to those nouveau kids who build their sense of self worth on their parents’ assets.
I think Jonri has made an interesting point.
Among the high net worth families I know- the colleges they want their kids to attend are the Denisons/SMU/Fairfield/Trinity type schools. MIT? Too hard. Princeton or Harvard? Even the “Gentleman’s C” of a few generations ago requires quite a sweat. But the sons major in finance or real estate somewhere not too hard, and the daughters major in communications and pledge the right sororities, and their worlds keep turning.
Dad’s a surgeon and mom’s an investment banker- especially if one of them is first Gen college (or first Gen American)? Yes- Elite college or bust. But for the scions of inherited wealth? They know the game (heck, they made the rules) and even they know that dim, sweet little Buffy can’t keep up with a kid who took 12 AP’s and had his professional music debut at Carnegie Hall. So she’s off to “launch” and nobody is pretending that she could keep up at Bryn Mawr or somewhere with a really intellectual student body.
Agree, Blossom, which is why I don’t get all this interest in paying hundreds of thousands to cheat your kid into USC. Sure, its a fine school, but little miss Loughlin would still be making millions if she attended U-San Diego or Arizona. The rich kids have such an advantage that they don’t need an elite college. (other than bragging rights for the 'rents.)
Little Miss L was going for social reasons, my bet. To have fun and get a degree. Not the other way around.
Totally anecdotal. But my dad saved money as very young person to go to the summer ymca camp he dreamed of attending. He saved enough to attend by being really disciplined etc. When he arrived it became obvious that you needed pocket change for the camp store and some other activities. He had not one extra penny on him. He didn’t know.
It was the first time he realized he was poor. His environment was just like everyone else, but suddenly was different. Camp wasn’t the experience he had conjured in his mind for years.
Of course he survived and surely has some fun along the way.
I’m just thinking that it’s perhaps a bit of this type of experience is common at high ses schools for the students from economically disadvantaged communities.
Not the fault of anyone. No one chooses their parents.
I know it also drove him and was a useful lesson throughout life. It didn’t hold him back or make life unfulfilling. It was just another experience.
private banker’s latest post, #166, makes me wonder whether there might be gendered differences in the reaction to a sudden realization that one is poor–not uniformly for all young women, of course, but it might generally be more difficult for a young woman than for a young man.
@QuantMech please explain.
There is an entire “shadow” economy at the truly well endowed colleges for needy kids. The Masters at Yale have slush funds to help kids buy the right clothes for orchestral performances, or for an emergency plane ticket home to see Grandma who is in hospice, or to replace broken eyeglasses when the kid literally doesn’t have $50 to spare. Ditto for Deans at Harvard, Princeton, etc. Is this the right approach? I have no idea. But generations of wealthy alums have set up funds to help the kids who have neither social capital nor actual greenbacks capital to ease their way.
^LOL, I remember our Master hosting numerous wine and beer tastings at his House. For us middle class and lower kids who were perplexed by multiple forks in the occasional sit down dinners, it was a new world. Senior year, he had an impromptu single malt scotch tasting at his House at a reception for seniors. I remember him showing us an unopened bottle that he was saving for a special day from a distillery that had been destroyed by bombing in WW2.
Hi Cheeringsection, I can only draw on my own experience and that of my close friends, plus what I am reading in posts by others.
privatebanker’s dad seemed to have been affected only in a good way by realizing that he was poor, when he went off to YMCA camp. It seems possible to me that there is less effect on young men in general, maybe? Though as I recall, the New York Times magazine had an article a few years ago about a young man at Princeton who was being ostracized by his suite-mates because he could not afford to contribute his “share” of the cost of furniture for the suite.
I don’t think my women friends and I are particularly snobbish or envious of people who are better off, but we are aware of status signs, and we are (or were) perhaps more susceptible to feeling hurt about the differences than privatebanker’s dad seemed to be.
A good friend of mine transferred in college from a small LAC in PA to a college in Texas. (So obviously this was not an Ivy, but a school with quite a few students from wealthy families. Please bear with me by permitting discussion on the general topic of socioeconomic impacts in college. An Ivy comes back in the next paragraph.) She had joined a sorority in her original college. When she moved, she was automatically a member of that sorority at the new college in Texas. She remarked that she would never have gotten into that sorority if she had started out at the college in Texas. I recall her saying that a particular brand of clothing was the best she had (and all of our high-school group thought it was excellent), but her sorority sisters would only wear that brand around the dorm, because it wasn’t “good enough” to wear to class. A number of her sorority sisters’ fathers came to visit by private plane, some by private jet. She clearly had the sense of being out of her socio-economic depth. Her sorority sisters were very nice to her, and she did not report any snobbery whatsoever about the differences, but the differences were patently obvious. The socioeconomic setting was a sort of “backdrop” to the classwork and activities–not at the top of her attention, but noteworthy enough to make her uncomfortable.
A while ago, there was a discussion in the Parent Cafe about bags/purses/whatever you call them. My top-of-the-line purse in actual use costs about 1/3 or less of the items mainly discussed there. My daughter at Yale wanted the more expensive types (Longchamps and up, not Birkins, though), because “all her friends” had them. I recall seeing some of the furniture being moved into the “Vanderbilt suite” for the freshman year at Yale–pretty amazing. We could improve our home by acquiring the sofa and love seat! For my daughter, we had provided a bookcase. Period. Also, I was startled to discover how much the “right” brand/brands of jeans could cost.
One could regard all of the differences as silly and superficial. From my current perspective, they surely are. But I don’t blame an 18-22 year old for being aware of the differences, especially since society seems more materialistic to me now than it was back when I was college age.
Many of the NESCACs and other top LACs do these types of things as well, including taking kids shopping for proper winter clothes, interview clothes and/or dressy attire for school dances.
Public flagships also have lending closets for interview clothes, food banks, and all kinds of supports for students who are struggling financially with the unexpected extras.
Back in our day, the whole situation was different. Efforts toward diversity were rare, very little generous FA. Few staff set up for academic and social support. Certainly, not the institutional proactive contact many colleges have today.
Now, we’re asking if the elite colleges are “elitest.” And some feel it’s intentional. After all, 100 years ago… Or, you know someone who…
Just catching up on this thread, but this and the ensuing debate caught my eye:
Stanford, like many universities, makes PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) payments. According to this paper https://www.lincolninst.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/langley-wp12al1-full_0.pdf
Stanford paid 7.1 million dollars in 2009. which equaled 25% of the property taxes of Palo Alto, or 3.44% of the town’s general revenues.
In 2012 Harvard paid 10 million to Cambridge, Boston and Watertown, Yale 8.1 to New Haven.
Sue- thanks for catching this.
In addition to PILOT payments, universities pay payroll taxes (Yale is currently the largest employer in CT) and the royalties/patents created by their faculty and labs create billions of dollars of value.
That was an interesting post, @QuantMech . My D went to a pretty wealthy exurban school from K-12 and was much more conscious of the expensive things her friends had (nice cars and clothes) than she was in college (NESCAC wealthy one).
Often we are worried about what is happening at the edges of the bell curve. Elite universities are at the edge of the bell curve. Not a ton of students attend compared to the total.
When I think of issues I like to focus on things that will move the needle. Fixing issues at the elite universities won’t move the needle.
I met someone recently and we had a common interest in that we have kids in college. We were trading some war stories. The person asked me how my child ended up at a certain school. I told this person merit $$ played a large role in the decision. This person told me that her child is not getting merit $$ at an OOS flagship. They are full pay. When I got home I looked it up and this person’s child would have had to make a 25 ACT or less to get no merit.
This is where who your parents are makes a difference to said child. If my child didn’t get merit she wouldn’t be going to the school she is at. She would be at a directional school or probably home at community college. And my child has a lot of friends that are in that situation. Didn’t get to go to a top 100 school mainly because of money.
At the end of the day there is a birth lottery in this world.
Maybe. But there are families that anticipated the cost of attendance when their kids were little and saved like crazy so they didn’t have to 100% rely on merit to attend said “elite” colleges.
In addition, some families saw the value in paying tutors to help their kids get high test scores (pay a little now to save a lot in merit money later).
Lastly the tippy top colleges (which this thread is about) will make college affordable for most families making less than 200k a year.
There’s more going on than strictly winning the birth lottery.