In an NBC Nightly News segment, “For some students, college dreams within closer reach, ” NBC discusses the growing trend for “wealthy” and “elite” non-profit universities to use their large endowments to help off-set the expense of outrageously expensive tuition (as well as room & board) due to increased pressure by Congress. Some of these universities include Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and Brown, giving discounted or free tuition (as well as room & board) if a students’ parents’ income is below a certain income, to help those families who have a lower-or-middle class income under $100k and/or $60k. NBC profiles Asian-American (with over a 4.0 GPA) National Merit Scholar Sammy Chow (and perhaps stereotypical overachieving “model minority”):
In the “good old days,” college used to be affordable and those who couldn’t afford college could work part-time to help pay for college. But these days, the best and brightest also have to worry about the being able to afford college, let alone get into the “best” one that they can. The median American family income (2006) was $48k, where tuition and room & board at these universities can exceed $45k a year.
When I graduated from an Ivy League university, I was saddled with over $17,000 in student loans - while trying to find a job during the Bush I recession (my brother, over $25k in student loans). I remember when I was a college summer intern, someone in the warehouse asked where I went to school, and after he told him, he said, “Wow, you must be *rich* AND smart.” Little did he know that my parents made just a middle class income at best.
I’m glad to hear that Asian-American students like Sammy Chow, as well as all American students, no matter how bright but not “rich” can go to the best universities in the U.S without worrying about the cost. I’ve always found it ironic that for most of the 1st world, the best universities have been public/government run institutions with relatively affordable tuitions while in the U.S., it is been the private universities. Higher education in the U.S. has increasingly become a class distinction and divide as the cost of a college education reaches beyond the reach of many, ironically so when education is the vital ingredient to attaining a higher standard of pay and living. I hope that both state governments as well with the federal government, can increase college aid so that college is affordable for all - not just with the “wealthy and elite.” But with the state and federal budget deficits due to Bush II economy, I don’t see that happening anytime soon unfortunately.
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jun wrote:
yea, funny thing is its harder and harder to attend public and state universities with financial aid. The myth is that private schools are way to expensive. In terms of total costs they are, but the fact is they give out wayyy more aid. Im attending a private university because i couldnt afford public university.. the irony
Posted on 08-Mar-08 at 1:53 pm | Permalink
Go Navy wrote:
There are many ways for low income people to pay for college. There’s the military, Peace Corp and Teach for America. You could be a nuclear submarine engineer when you graduate. There’s http://www.myrichuncle.com and Michael Robertson. Education is the best financial investment you could every make, except for a Phd, which is so horrible financially. There are many ways to pay for college, but unfortunately I only found out about those ways when I was in a public university. I talked to a Marine and he said if he knew about financial aid back in high school, he would have went to college instead of enlist. If you go to a school where most people don’t go to college then you’re more likely to know less about how to pay for college and its importance. It’s hard to break that cycle.
Private school is enough to make a well off person feel poor. $50k/year is after tax money. If you look at it pretax, it’s about $90k/year. God forbid you have more than one child in college at the same time. If you’re making $200k/year, that $90k/year is a sizable chunk. Then again, you can still afford to pay for it.
There’s one caveat about being at a rich private university. Most of the other students are rich, so there are very few people with the same socioeconomic status at you. I know personally. You can’t help but feel different, because they never have to worry about financial matters or deal with people who aren’t from the same socioeconomic group. I overheard a group of young ladies talk about homeless people in San Francisco in a way that dehumanized them. It kind of broke my heart, but I excused them, because that was something totally new to them. It’s kind of like all the Japanese people staring at you as you walk the streets when you’re a big black guy in teaching English in Japan.
I’m a bit skeptical about the motivations for providing financial aid to low income people. First, some senator said some strong words about universities not making use of their tax sheltered endowments. Second, it is a way to saying something in your demographics. Private universities have to operate like a business. Making your rich alumni happy and getting new rich alumni is a necessity.
I love the United States. If I lived elsewhere, my chance of getting into a college would be a lot less. My mother reads me articles about degrees from colleges in China being worthless and how parents commit suicide after their one child gets into college, because they can’t pay for it. I don’t know how much is exaggeration and how much is true, but I do know my parents were denied education as a result of the cultural revolution.
Posted on 08-Mar-08 at 11:08 pm | Permalink