What it's like to be poor in an Ivy League(or any elite/respectable private college)

Parents Forum
281

That was my experience during undergrad as a FA/scholarship student at my private LAC.

One major difference which befuddled me at first was how blase many upper/upper-middle class kids were about having C level grades or even graduating with cumulative averages in the low-mid 2.x ranges. In their minds, getting an A or B is nice, but if they have to put in more effort than they felt like, they’ll be happy with a C/C-.

It’s a thought process not only totally alien to me as someone who attended a public magnet where having a C/C- or sometimes even a B/B+* marked someone as “lazy”, not putting in the “minimal requisite effort” or “not very bright”, but also one I cannot ever entertain as I’d lose the scholarship portion of my package if too many grades/cumulative GPA dropped anywhere near the 2.x or even borderline 3.x mark and with it, any chances of continuing and graduating from college for a long time…if ever.

If that happened, I could have easily been like a colleague of mine whose working-class parents gave him the stark choice of finding a full-time job with a HS diploma and paying market-rate rent/moving out or enlisting in the military after he in his words “partied away his full-ride” and was academically expelled.

  • Even some HS teachers I've had regarded a B/B+ as a "junky grade".

I almost avoided going to my HS prom because I could not only not afford the expensive price of the tickets, but also the required clothing to go with it. Heck, even $5 felt like so much money to me that I feared carrying it in my wallet while growing up in the NYC of the late '80s/early '90s.

That mentality still remains with me to some extent today as I still prefer to avoid carrying large amounts of cash in my wallet to avoid the muggings everyone in my old neighborhood and NYC overall experienced in a period before NYC became known as one of the safest cities in the nation according to recent national crime statistics.

No offense, but you really showed yourself up as not “getting it” by making such a remark. In such a situation, it’d be stupid to keep any cash in the house unless it’s hidden very well on one’s person even when sleeping with one eye possibly kept open if the thieving relative decides to sneak or forcibly steal it.

And even then, those who are inclined to steal/rob their own relatives will find a way of doing so. It’s something many elementary school classmates and their families had to go through…even after kicking out the thieving relative(s) and having them arrested.

It also isn’t limited to just lower SES, either. There were a few times I caught one older relative in the act of going into my wallet so he could feed his drinking habit and had to read him the riot act myself and enlist his parents before he ceased doing so. At the time, I was just out of college and just past the 6 month mark of working my first job after undergrad.

282

Help me understand this: How can your offspring in college “save money” if/when he/she does not make any money and does not have any regular stream of money coming from either scholarship or student loans?!

Not every student in college is like romani
who needs to make money.

283

Please don’t get confused by the words “save money”. What I actually said was “…maintain an emergency fund for the small problems”.

284

One needs to have a sufficient source of income to feasibly start and maintain an emergency fund after basics such as food, shelter, transportation, medicine, etc are deducted.

Many families…much less undergrad students from lower SES backgrounds often do not have enough of an economic buffer after those deductions to feasibly start such a fund.

2 Likes
285

I think many if not most college students work during the summer and other breaks to earn spending money to get them through the academic year. You learn to budget when you are in school and that is a good life lesson - you also learn to live within your means - whatever those means might be.

Yes we all observed that there were certain students who had an endless supply of money and could do things that most others could not. But from my perspective - that is life. If a student finds themselves in a situation where they fall short on basic living expenses or cannot afford books, then they need to talk to financial aid to see what can be done or if there might be other resources available. I think most colleges are very in tuned to this sort of thing. They do not want to see students struggling and with their vast financial resources I am going to bet that the student falling short of funds for shampoo or toothpaste will be assisted quickly. There are also "work study’ programs where students with need can work on campus to bridge whatever gap they might have.

But for all the extras? When I was in school my “extras” were limited to what the cash flow from my summer earnings could provide. I had more control over my class scheduling my last 2 years of college. So I worked about 10 hours a week at a Pappagallo shop close to campus and babysat my professor’s children. Many of my friends did something similar.

286

Wrong. The vast majority of colleges are not tuned in to this sort of thing. Top colleges, maybe- to an extent.

By the way, had I known my sentence was going to be pounced on, I would’ve elaborated further but I didn’t think it was relevant. The not having money was just the final straw to a very stressful situation. It was just after a medical episode and I was broke from paying those bills.

I know how to budget. I had the money in savings to cover my medical bills but it left me flat broke. After undergrad, I had the savings to pay bills for both myself and my parents while in graduate school. Please, don’t ever talk to me about budgeting.

1 Like
287

As far as saving vs. maintaining, call it whatever you like. My point is that determining whether you respect someone, particularly a young student, basedi on an emergency fund would seem to suggest that you think money is pretty darned important. Which seems to conflict with the idea that money is not worth crying about.

i myself can imagine a wide range of scenarios in which the lack of money is worth crying about. Because in many situations the lack of money is a pretty big problem.

1 Like
288

Gosh, I feel sorry for the poor kids on campus (who apparently are now both stupid AND poor) since they can’t figure out how to maintain a slush fund for broken eyeglasses, admissions to museums, transportation when stranded, etc.

Having been a “scholarship student” (which is what we were called) I think a little empathy is called for here. I could have easily gotten an emergency $50 bucks from my parents “back in the day” (no, not enough for a plane ticket to join a gang of friends to some Island for Xmas break, but ALWAYS enough for emergency ANYTHING), but I knew kids who didn’t have that safety net. I tutored middle school kids in the community for cash in addition to the campus job, but that money went for my expenses, not my tuition (paid for by aid and my parents). My summer earnings covered books, but I knew kids whose summer earnings had to cover books PLUS the cash they gave their parents at the end of the summer to help tide them over.

It’s great you guys were such energetic boot-strappers selling your plasma and all. But you can’t spare an ounce of compassion for a kid who shows up on campus with LESS than you had? And EVERYONE should know to head to Goodwill in Greenwich CT for a really good deal on a tuxedo? And should stop- what, eating? in order to save up for a new pair of eyeglasses?

2 Likes
289

" Today at 9:32 am
@epiphany Um, there is nothing about this that has indicated my student flaunts wealth. It’s entirely your assumption. In fact, this situation came about because they assumed she was a scholarship student in the first place. Those girls took her for one of them since the beginning of the year and only began to act up when they couldn’t make her act like one of the pack.

What you need to understand is that there are students in the Ivies who are very attuned to this sort of thing and who seek it out. It doesn’t have to be flaunted. In fact, the families who actually do have money are a lot harder to spot then the ones who are trying to pretend they do."

No, sir. What YOU “need to understand” is that post after post you complained about the spoken attitudes of other people on your daughter’s campus. My post referred to THEM, NOT TO YOUR DAUGHTER.

Um, it’s entirely your WRONG assumption that I was referring to your daughter.

Brother. How rude.

290

Wait! What? What? What? What? JustOneDad was popping tags with 20$ in his pocket. He was hunting, looking for a come up. This is effing awesome. Budgeter extraordinaire and Macklemore’s muse.

291

I was also a scholarship student…who worked too. I had no choice but to learn to budget very carefully, and also learn to live within or below my means.

And I really didn’t have anyone to call for an additional $50 in an emergency. I either needed to have it myself, or borrow from a friend. And $50 in 1970 was a good chunk of change to need to borrow.

And the best lesson all of us can teach our kids is how to budget. It’s an essential life skill.

Re: dress clothes…there is absolutely no way I was going to get fancy clothes just in case I needed them. That was a luxury I would not have been able to afford.

Luckily, there were plenty of folks who wore my size and were very willing to lend me someone if needed.

292

I do not see that there is a lack of empathy on this thread. I think people are proposing some possible solutions. If there is a true need for necessities such as toiletries, eyeglasses or books what is wrong with approaching the financial aid office for possible resources or solutions? And what is wrong with “work study” jobs on campus or a part time job off campus if scheduling allows?

293

“I do not see that there is a lack of empathy on this thread. I”

There isn’t. Some people are simply not very discriminating readers and read all kinds of unwarranted (critical) messages into supportive messages.

294

@romanigypsyeyes Correct. At a place like Yale, the assistant Dean, say of the African American house, would track their kids and coordinate communication with the Master’s office of each respective college–and keep a close pulse of such things. But, that is both unusual and resource intensive, by most university standards.

295

“And EVERYONE should know to head to Goodwill in Greenwich CT for a really good deal on a tuxedo?”

Wait, did someone propose this on this thread?

296

The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard (a book placed in every freshman suite) does tell students to go to Keezer’s for a cheap used tux. I don’t know if there’s such a guide elsewhere. At any rate, they’re cheap, not free, so if you were on a super tight budget it could still be a problem.

297

Harvestmoon. Read post 274.

Like everyone would get a tux to have just in case they needed one. Right.

298

Keezer’s sells new and used men’s suits and formal wear. And quite frankly given that formal wear is usually so lightly used, I would have no problem recommending that to my son. He doesn’t needs a $600 tuxedo that he might need a few times a year hanging in his closet at college.

299

I thought I was all that back in the day, and on a business trip to Hong Kong had one tailored made (this is early 1999 or so, and was still very affordable), well after numerous “letting outs” at the waist, I now have to annually diet to get that bad boy on…such is life.

300

I would definitely agree that cultural norms may make it difficult for students with no money to adjust to schools with high proportions of high SES students, and I think that mentoring should perhaps be instituted upon enrolling a low SES kid. Some may prove adept at adjusting, some may need more help. Some may simply choose not to ‘adjust’ and be content with their differing world view and lack of ‘full integration’ into the school. I liken it to the adjustment some of my muslim foreign-born acquaintances have had to make upon being thrust/enrolled into a US college. Just last week an affluent Pakistani friend told me her D (US-born) transferred out of NYU back to UMD so she could live at home, social mismatch being main reason. An earlier poster mentioned that sometimes there is pressure from the community of origin to maintain values. After the low SES student graduates from HYP, he still has a mom or dad living in the 'hood or by the coalmines, and still must maintain those relationships.