I stumbled across this article and it is very interesting: http://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2013/11/27/the-challenge-of-being-poor-at-americas-richest-colleges/
The articles goes into detail about low-income kids on campuses with wealthier students. It reminded me of a talk I went to where our very own Anita Davis was talking about her campus climate surveys. She was saying that in the surveys, they don't get nearly as many race difference complaints as her office does class issues. Low income students feel very uncomfortable when the people surrounding them come from more economically advantageous backgrounds.
This is a very touchy topic, so I'll pick my words carefully. But has the race difference evolved into more of a class difference. What is a student to do when everyone around them wears designer things and goes on expensive outings? Is it even the responsibility of a college to dictate the climate around socioeconomic status of students. Is it the responsibility of the school to accept a more financially diverse student body?
I don't know. I just found it interesting to think about.
I think that it is the responsibility of the school to accept a more financially diverse student body. It is not fair for only one group of students to feel uncomfortable. I make the previous statement keeping in mind a "Brown Bag Lecture" last year giving Anthro/Soc department's own Professor Perry on class differences in the college climate. She found diversification mostly affected the more affluent students rather than the less affluent. The more affluent students aimed at attempting to minimize their resources. In the study when a student of a high income family was asked of the number of designer purses owned, she replied that she owned "only six." In utilizing the word "only" the student was attempting to make herself appear to be middle class to fit in. Situations like these would aim to educate the student as to the usually dismissed societal meaning of that designer bag and/or luxury car. Those of the lower classes have no choice but to face adversity (similar to minorities, race, and society), institutionally diversifying the student body by colleges would make the more fortunate more sensitive to the people around them.
ReplyDeleteI'm just playing devil's advocate here. I witnessed a girl from a wealthy family venting about how difficult it is to be in college because it seems that schools favor or pay more attention to students who don't come from wealthy backgrounds. Do you think that intentionally accepting students based on financial diversity will bring some type of disadvantage to prospective students that don't come from less fortunate enviroments?
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