<p>Approximately 30% of the US population holds a bachelor’s degree. The other 70% manages to live without a complete college education. It seems most lower class people enter the workforce and a significant number of middle class people also enter the workforce. A university education has always been and will always be an enterprise almost entirely dominated by the upper middle and wealthy classes. We might take it for granted but the fact that people of limited economic resources have a good chance of obtaining a university education, even at a “lower ranked” institution, is a remarkable feat.</p>
<p>By the end of my senior year my parents should make about 100k a year together. But, they will only contribute to about 5-9k a year for my college. I’m kind of scared because I have to find scholarships, loans, grants, and aid! The only schools that are public that I am looking at are UCSB and NAU</p>
<p>Lucky, I understand what you’re trying to say; uneducated people should go get an education. But it doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. Only the wise are able to appreciate education, and unless a life-changing event happens to an uneducated person, they will not think anything of education. A good example of that is Community College. There are many students there just wasting their time, because they don’t understand why they’re there. A common reason for them is because their parents really wanted them to go, or they had to choose somewhere they can still hang out with like-minded people. </p>
<p>Also, going to college isn’t only about working hard; it’s a about pure damn luck as well. You have to take into account that the environment that the poor are in is extremely influential, and not in a good way. Just like all other organisms, humans are nothing but products of their environment. This is woefully true in poor neighborhoods. Poor neighborhoods are the aggregate of a bunch of uneducated people. Uneducated people raise kids with values we don’t feel are too commendable, they in turn abandon school, and then go off and eventually procreate. You then have the same situation again, and it’s a vicious cycle. </p>
<p>That’s why I say it’s a miracle for the poor to know about higher education and it’s rewards. The grand majority of them think schooling is useless, until they have to work a dead end job and raise their kids. But it’s too late then.</p>
<p>I feel that you sometimes work for what you get. There are always going to be lower class people who fluff life and education and who will never really get ahead in life. A motivated hard working and smart kid has a good chance to at least earn a degree regardless of their socio-economic situation. All you have to do is pass, not get top grades or whatever. Be patient and stay on top of what needs to be done. </p>
<p>Being poor is rough, yet, unless you want to get out of that cycle, you best go to college and finish. I know that a lot of asian people want their kids to go to top colleges, etc. Yet, a lot of these same asian people are poor. Much of the people in Chinatown in New York for example do not work, they get government welfare,etc. Yet, a fair number of asian kids go to college, good colleges even.</p>
<p>A motivated kid can succeed even if they are poor. There are resources available that if someone really want to achieve something, they can find information and help. Of course, making top tier and top colleges is going to be hard and only a small percentage do. Imagine a poor kid from a bad neighbor making a top college without much help, that is pretty impressive.</p>
<p>I agree. The hardest part is getting the kid motivated though. Who is there to have those kids interested in mathematics, or reading outside of school? Nobody. Why would the kid want to endeavor to do such things would honestly be an anomaly.</p>
<p>You bring up a good point about the Chinese in New York City. That highlights another considerable aspect in the equation…culture. There must be a reason more poor Chinese send their children to college than Hispanic and Black do, and I feel like culture is the only plausible explanation.</p>
<p>Reading this topic really makes me sad. I’m currently in Engineering because it’s what I love, but I know there’s still so much social injustice in the world.</p>
<p>^There are significant differences between American-born and foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos or whatever our current government approved label is. Matter of fact, there’s a huge difference between a native population and an immigrant population.</p>
<p>Take a look at US graduate schools and you will notice a significant amount of East and Southeast Asians attending. Immigrant populations tend to be more entrepreneurial and proactive than native populations but of course it all “stabilizes” after a few generations.</p>
<p>Foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos place greater importance on education than American-born Hispanics/Latinos, at least in my experience.</p>
<p>One of my friends whose income is about 10 k a year for a family of 5 is going to a tier 1 private school next year.</p>
<p>My family income was $25,000 for a family of 6- there isnt a way in hell they were going to help me out.</p>
<p>… I go to CMU.</p>
<p>^I’m going to CMU in the fall also, and my family makes 21,000 but we only have 4-5 to support (depends on my nephew, my brothers have moved out). But really we do okay, I mean I think I’m okay usually, there’s the house and I’m good.</p>
<p>and Midnight, I still don’t agree that we’re unaware of education and it’s value. I have a lot of friends aware that dropping out was suicide and they we’re depressed about it but it was that or, I guess they’re family was screwed. And then pregnancy is a big deal that still bugs me and I feel like that’s another issue. Overall it is less enforced, I see from wealthier that education is the only way to be happy, while I see my mom and dad happy and know I don’t need college for that. Also I always think of half this years IB class that turned down nice schools up north because they didn’t want to be around a bunch of rich kids (we do hear stories from those that have gone to Yale/Princeton/Emory/somethingnicenamed and then come back, that their friends will just be able to pick up and go to NY for a broadway show, I mean, how are you supposed to deal with that? I couldn’t do that, neither could my friends and there is that fear to overcome that going to a school of rich kids will put you out at times)</p>
<p>Enginox, that may be because the foreigners who come to study here come from wealthy families. Most people from my country (the Dominican Republic) don’t even graduate from high school.</p>
<p>What you say about foreigners in graduate schools is true though. Here’s a nice video on a talk given by a Stanford economist. He makes a remark on the US University system and foreign students about 2/3s of the way through.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - THOMAS SOWELL - rotten PUBLIC SCHOOLS](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Nuy_gbMtc]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2Nuy_gbMtc)</p>
<p>So lucky, how can you explain the small percentage of poor students at private, or even state colleges, if you say the the poor are aware of higher education and its value? Anecdotal evidence says nothing unfortunately.</p>
<p>I still really don’t think my family is poor, but at my school people act like we’re destitute so I really don’t know. I went to a community college and transferred to umich (in state). That would have worked out a lot better if my family had ACTUALLY been poor and not just been poor by rich people standards, since I would have gotten financial aid then. </p>
<p>I think if schools with good financial aid are available in the state of residence of the “poor” person, they are probably in pretty good shape as long as they had the opportunity to get a good enough education to be prepared for college. I have friends that go to umich practically for free because they get good financial aid because theyre EFC was really low. It’s more the lower-middle middle class folks who get stuck in between, because they are expected to be full pay for the instate publics and they only maybe can actually pull that off.</p>
<p>Poor people go to teh zoo. </p>
<p>They go to look at teh bears. </p>
<p>Teh bears are nice and cuddly and warm. </p>
<p>And that’s why teh poor go to teh zoo.</p>
<p>^ Haha.</p>
<p>My parents make less than 50k a year. My two siblings went to UCs on financial aid (and graduated with some debt) and I’ll be at a private college that costs 55k a year on a ton of aid. Thank God for financial aid!</p>
<p>My family isn’t poor, but there’s something to be said about paying for college when the full price is more than your household income. Families living on 30k a year can send their kids to college, but opportunities are significantly limited. Some things -like application fee waivers- close the gap (I wouldn’t have had so many options if they didn’t exist), but of course, a lot of poor kids don’t even think of going to college, nor have they had the sort of privileged primary and high school educational experience that are, nowadays, practically intermediate steps between birth and freshman year of college.</p>
<p>^^lol is that why my family always makes trips to the zoo?</p>
<p>op: if you make enough of case (most???) schools should give you at least some aid. you can supplement that with scholarships. there are thousands of thousands of scholarships. the applying to them part prob sucks eggs, but the result will be worth it.</p>
<p>there is no college for the poor, if that’s what you’re asking.</p>
<p>There are options for smart kids who excel even if they lack finances. Some tuition free schools include Cooper Union, Macaulay honors college. Some cheap cost colleges include the ivys for those who make less than a certain amount, UVA, the UCs,etc. So if one were truly on the ball, they would know about such opporunities and apply.</p>
<p>It makes no sense when poor people want to go to private, as they are poor and shouldn’t be able to go. It is almost like trying to buy the most expensive home in the neighborhood when you only have so much money. There are institutions for people who are poor people, such as State schools. Why should a middle class person not be able to afford a private school but a poor person can? Makes no sense, especially if the poor person lives as well as the middle class through government aid. I don’t think these so called poor people in America live that much worse than middle class people, takes forever to save 100k plus. I know kids who only pay like 7k or 10k a yr to go to top tier private colleges and they live almost as well as I do. Kind of funny when people off the books put that they make 0 dollars for their business.</p>
<p>Heres a solution nobody thinks about: If you can’t afford to feed/clothe/support the child, don’t have one?</p>
<p>But to OP, low income students who do well in school are often going to pretty decent schools (ie. privates/great state schools). The state schools are pretty much paid for with pell grants/state grants, while the privates offer generous merit/need based scholarships. If you mean stupid & poor, then generally military, community college –> state school, or workforce.</p>
<p>I think that more than anything, it has to do with class values and education. As much as the US is supposed to be “classless” and “egalatarian,” in reality, all the social classes are still there, and social mobility, while legally possible, is practically very difficult to near impossible.</p>
<p>One of the first things to note are the barriers to entering college. Hanging around these forums, you probably all know what SATs and ACTs are. You know that college applications are typically done the first semester of senior year. One of the reasons you want to go to college is because several middle-class jobs require at least a Bachelor’s Degree.</p>
<p>Knowledge such as this usually comes from family and friends who have been through the process before. Getting into college is like a huge minefield, waiting for you to fail at any moment’s notice. If you manage to get yourself in, you’re either extremely smart, extremely lucky, or like most college students, were part of a social class that knows percisely how to navigate the minefield and a set of values that motivate students to enter the minefield in the first place.</p>
<p>I’ve heard stories of some first-generation college students who only applied to one college, because they didn’t know they’re supposed to apply to several. I’ve also heard stories about people who just “work hard,” and cannot possibly see the benefits of “wasting” four years studying. To them, it’s basically: get a job, do it well, get promoted.</p>
<p>As for finding out this information and values from other people, I’ll ask you to carefully examine your social network. You’ll notice that most of the people are of the same social class as you. This because despite the idealization that we’re supposed to be in a classless equal-opportunity society, in reality, the social system holds on its own without the laws. There’s just not enough in common between the upper middle-class professional and the lower-class laborers for real social relations to practically form.</p>
<p>Of the few people I “know” who are “poor” – most as acquaintences or friends of friends – they simply don’t go to college. Not even community college. It’s straight into the workforce right out of high school.</p>
<p>Similarly, of the few very rich people that I know, I look at them, and to be honest, I don’t quite comprehend their values. Apparently, they place less emphasis on education and more on money management. I’d like to be as rich as them someday, but I know that’s probably not happening until I get comfortable enough to change some of my core values. And, guess what happens when that happens? I’ll probably alienate some friends.</p>
<p>College, or rather education, is a middle-class institution. Time to face reality.</p>
<p>I owe my acceptances to CC - as a first generation student of the lower-middle class, I would have never thought that there were institutions that met one’s full demonstrated need. Here, if one is poor, one goes to the local CC, or a SUNY/CUNY. If anything, the financial application process is a far more dangerous minefield than the college application one! I only knew of the FAFSA before coming to CC, as most people here don’t apply to schools that take the Profile. Without CC, I doubt I would be heading to a college whose annual cost equals my family income (~50K, which doesn’t go anywhere on Long Island.)</p>
<p>I wish students of lower-income families would be exposed to the number of opportunities within higher education. I know in the college assemblies at my school, the only colleges that received mention were SUNYs, CUNYs, and a handful of local privates. It really is a shame. </p>
<p>Thank goodness for CC!</p>
<p>Versii, sometimes it isn’t as simple as choosing not to have babies. Instinctual behavior is more powerful than the uneducated mind. And since the majority of the world doesn’t even have a high school degree…they’re going to have babies whether you like it or not. But even then, what if a child’s parents are somewhat well off? That doesn’t mean they are going to raise their child correctly. There are many well off, uneducated parents out there that practice irresponsible parenting and do not know any better, because they feel the obstacles they encounter are normal. Lamentably, having good intentions doesn’t guarantee a healthy upbringing for a child. You have to know how actually raise them as well, and many people do not.</p>
<p>Excelblue, good post. I, like nightpwnsj00, am child of the internet. Without, I would honestly be the in the group of people oblivious to how others live their lives, just going about what the people in my neighborhood do. I feel like you no longer have to depend on a miracle, or have to be from the informed group of people to be informed, because the internet is simply a great machine of information dissemination. Knowing the internet has this information is another topic altogether, but since people are so connected with the internet these days, the chances of coming across a site like CC are getting greater and greater. </p>
<p>Excelblue, you also outlined what most of the people I know are doing; going straight to work. They believe staying in school is absolutely dreadful and useless (they almost faint when they hear I’ll be staying even longer for a PhD).</p>
<p>Well, the problem is that if you were poor and had to go to a State college and also live off student loans, it affects your employability later on because it’s almost impossible these days to get a job with a State college as your alma mater. They don’t look as good on the resume and the State college “career centers” are so understaffed and minimalist these days that they have no help whatsoever. And then you go out in the job market and compete with people who may not have gone to college at all and have the same amount of years’ worth of work experience. So the only way out of that dilemma is for the poor to go ahead and take out the student loans for the better, more prestigious schools and drown in after-school debt, just so they can get a JOB with their college degree and get out of that vicious circle.</p>