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What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

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Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#131

Post by mc32 »

stegosaurus wrote: post #128
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO, its natural and right that schools should be tailored for the rich? That's not an injustice? Remember, these are tax-exempt institutions.

The injustice is wealth inequality in general. UK elite universities are constantly railed on for not admitting more poor students, but part of the issue is that we simply have lower levels of attainment. Equality there is not possible without negative discrimination. How do we fix wealth inequality? Well, we probably can't. But I do think we could go further towards providing necessities to all, which would solve a…

This reminds me of stories from the old USSR. There would be students of an ethnicity which excelled at math and sciences, so were overrepresented. In turn the system in no uncertain discriminatory terms would simply fail them in their entrance exams --even when they got everything correct and went above and beyond in providing proofs. "yes, its all correct, exceptional, but I have to fail you" would be the consolation in confidence.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#132

Post by JoeAltmaier »

stegosaurus wrote: post #128
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SO, its natural and right that schools should be tailored for the rich? That's not an injustice? Remember, these are tax-exempt institutions.

The injustice is wealth inequality in general. UK elite universities are constantly railed on for not admitting more poor students, but part of the issue is that we simply have lower levels of attainment. Equality there is not possible without negative discrimination. How do we fix wealth inequality? Well, we probably can't. But I do think we could go further towards providing necessities to all, which would solve a…

That's probably not true. Poorer students may in general have lower attainment, true. But there are so many, many more of them - even a 1% rate of rich-student attainment means there are still an order of magnitude MORE qualified poor students wanting to attend college. No discrimination necessary to address the current imbalance - just blind admission.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#133

Post by ChuckMcM »

hkmurakami wrote: post #110
ChuckMcM wrote: post #31

I don't think this is limited to schools. All through life you will find that there are people with more, or fewer, resources than you have and interactions may be adversely affected by that. The example of going out to dinner and then catching a movie is a good one. In a mid to large sized metropolitan area that is an expenditure of $40 - $100 (depending) and that can represent anywhere from .1% to 10% of a person's…

> Once they graduate they are very likely to be at least part of the "middle" and their kids the "upper middle". This is an observation that I've come to as well, in that first generation success, no matter what level the financial success, will only move the person up maybe one notch in "class", because the old habits are hard to shake (this is both a good and bad thing). The kids tend to be one notch farther up as…

There have been a number of studies of lottery winners along these lines. The observation has been made that people who acquire money slowly are more likely to have habits which maximizes retention and extracts the most value out of the capital they hold. Whereas people who are suddenly "rich" often will spend money on things which are expensive but not valuable, and do not provide any sort of "return" (either in capability or value) commensurate with the expenditure. The canonical example is the lottery winner who buys a new luxury car or SUV with all of the options with their winnings rather than buying a reliable economy car and investing the difference cost in either future education for their children or savings against future need. You have to be taught those habits and one way to learn them is to be in a group that is spending recklessly and not getting any value for what they spend money on (learning by observation rather than experience).

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#134

Post by re_todd »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #11

This resonated with me - a poor farm kid from Iowa going to Stanford. I had my student loan plus zilch. Other students were off to Hawaii for vacation. Me, I had to bum a place to stay over breaks when the dorms were closed. I never asked questions; never used any tutors or talked to a professor; never studied in groups. It was a lonely life.

> Other students were off to Hawaii for vacation. Me, I had to bum a place to stay over breaks when the dorms were closed.

So true. Having attended a few colleges in California, I got tired of everyone else going to their parent's cabin over break in Tahoe, Mammoth, or Big Bear. And the dorms would close for a week or two, so I couldn't concentrate fully on my finals while I worried about where I'd stay and not have to sleep a few nights in a park.

> never used any tutors or talked to a professor I had a hard time talking to my professor, and I noticed others from blue-color backgrounds have difficulty as well. Upper middle-class kids never seemed to have a problem talking to their professors, which seemed to give them a significant advantage.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#135

Post by lordnacho »

cperciva wrote: post #60
lordnacho wrote: post #10

I would caution against too much class consciousness. My parents came to the west in a boat, much like the ones that are sinking every day in the med. They scraped together a living and tuition fees running Chinese food joints. When I arrived in Oxford, I did realise there were some interesting characters around. One guy with a posh accent stuck waved his chequebook outside his room during a tuition fee demonstration…

When I arrived in Oxford, I did realise there were some interesting characters around. One guy with a posh accent stuck waved his chequebook outside his room during a tuition fee demonstration, offering to pay for everyone's tuition if he could just be allowed some peace. There are dudes walking the street in top hats. There are kids with sports cars. When were you in Oxford? In my day I never saw any top hats, barri…

99 to 03. You had to know which kids had the cars. There's not much in the way of parking, but now and again you'd see a flash car pull up outside a college.

Top hats are an eccentric thing. Kids did it to get mentioned on HN years later.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#136

Post by cperciva »

lordnacho wrote: post #135
cperciva wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I arrived in Oxford, I did realise there were some interesting characters around. One guy with a posh accent stuck waved his chequebook outside his room during a tuition fee demonstration, offering to pay for everyone's tuition if he could just be allowed some peace. There are dudes walking the street in top hats. There are kids with sports cars. When were you in Oxford? In my day I never saw any top hats, barri…

99 to 03. You had to know which kids had the cars. There's not much in the way of parking, but now and again you'd see a flash car pull up outside a college. Top hats are an eccentric thing. Kids did it to get mentioned on HN years later.

Well, our time in Oxford overlapped (I was there 2001-05)... I guess you were just more observant than me. ;-)

I did see some fancy cars, but they were always driven by college fellows or other "adults" -- never anyone of student age.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#137

Post by lordnacho »

cperciva wrote: post #136
lordnacho wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99 to 03. You had to know which kids had the cars. There's not much in the way of parking, but now and again you'd see a flash car pull up outside a college. Top hats are an eccentric thing. Kids did it to get mentioned on HN years later.

Well, our time in Oxford overlapped (I was there 2001-05)... I guess you were just more observant than me. ;-) I did see some fancy cars, but they were always driven by college fellows or other "adults" -- never anyone of student age.

There was one particular Rolls driven by a prof who'd written THE book on Physical Chemistry, I remember seeing that quite often.

Did you not think people wore some strange clothes? I was back last week and saw loads of kids in suits. These days it just screams "first day at work".

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#138

Post by cperciva »

lordnacho wrote: post #137
cperciva wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, our time in Oxford overlapped (I was there 2001-05)... I guess you were just more observant than me. ;-) I did see some fancy cars, but they were always driven by college fellows or other "adults" -- never anyone of student age.

There was one particular Rolls driven by a prof who'd written THE book on Physical Chemistry, I remember seeing that quite often. Did you not think people wore some strange clothes? I was back last week and saw loads of kids in suits. These days it just screams "first day at work".

There were always some students wearing sub fusc, but that hardly qualifies...

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#139

Post by lordnacho »

cperciva wrote: post #65
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even during the semester, they didn't serve on Sunday. Presumably because you were all out with friends, eating at a pub or whatever. I just didn't eat on Sunday night.

Huh, I had completely forgotten about that. I had the same experience in Oxford -- my college served breakfast/lunch/dinner 6 days a week, but on Sunday there was just a brunch, and most weeks I ended up not eating dinner on Sunday.

Which college were you at? We had one day a week without food at Corpus, and I just found a couple of friends to cook with.

Re: What is it like to be poor at an Ivy League school?

#140

Post by cperciva »

lordnacho wrote: post #139
cperciva wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I had completely forgotten about that. I had the same experience in Oxford -- my college served breakfast/lunch/dinner 6 days a week, but on Sunday there was just a brunch, and most weeks I ended up not eating dinner on Sunday.

Which college were you at? We had one day a week without food at Corpus, and I just found a couple of friends to cook with.

Wadham.
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