I feel bad for low-income/first-gen students at elite schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they go to those schools and major in useless stuff, then good luck.
Of course it's better than majoring in useless stuff at a mediocre school, however it has more to do with major.

Who has the luxury of useless degrees?
I was first gen and went into engineering and did fine, even though a different science might have been my first pick if money was no object. I knew I had to have a career track right out of undergrad.

What you may not know about being poor is that you don't pick up merchandise unless you already know the price of it. I knew the other degrees were not in my budget.

Lots of lesser prepared kids get weeded out of “useful” majors like engineering, biology, computer science, physics & statistics. Even nursing (although Princeton doesn’t offer that).

[Anonymous]

Students whose donut hole parents can barely scrape to pay school's bills are in worse position. They don't get money/opportunities from financial aid or wealthy parents so less opportunities than both extremes. Also there is guilt of draining family resources.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a senior survey at Princeton which had a breakdown for GPA across income levels, first-gen status, etc: https://projects.dailyprincetonian.com/senior-survey-2022/academics.html

50% of first-gen students had a 3.6 GPA or higher, compared to 69% of non-first gen students.

The lowest income students by family household (below 40K) at Princeton had an average GPA of a 3.5, while the highest income students had a 3.72.

32% of the lowest income students reported cheating on an assignment or exam, compared to 21% of students overall.

Only 49% of students on financial aid reported having a job lined up for graduation, compared to 62% of those not on FA. Expected income for those on FA was 84K one year after graduating, compared to 124K for those not on FA. Students on all household income levels below 125K reported expected earnings under 84K, while all those over that level reported at least 115K.

These are considerable gaps. If higher ed is supposed to be the great equalizer, why are Princeton grads seeing such discrepancies corresponding with their background?

These "discrepancies" demonstrate what should be extremely obvious to everyone, which is that the "elite" schools are admitting low-income / first-gen students who are not academically qualified, and are doing so for ideological reasons.

You're comment is not the takeaway I see from OP's post

"The lowest income students by family household (below 40K) at Princeton had an average GPA of a 3.5, while the highest income students had a 3.72."

Oh, a 3.5 GPA from Stanford is so bad?
How dare Stanford risk sullying their academic reputation by allowing in such riff raff

+1 I don't understand how one draws that conclusion when the lowest income students are doing pretty damn well. Imagine if they didn't have to worry about work study, family obligations, and such like their higher household income peers.

I mentor first-gen college students and another thing to remember is that, especially if we are talking about first-gen immigrant children, their grades may be lower because they are more likely to major in things with harsher curves like pre-med majors because they don't have any parental wealth to fall back on and are under pressure to have a career where they can support their parents someday. Even if their first love is art history, a first-gen immigrant kid would be under pressure not to major in that, while those with inherited wealth are more likely to be fine with their kids majoring in art history.

This is such a good point. Thank you for pointing it out, and thanks for your mentorship.

/former FG college student who is grateful for all of the mentorship I received

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they go to those schools and major in useless stuff, then good luck.
Of course it's better than majoring in useless stuff at a mediocre school, however it has more to do with major.

Who has the luxury of useless degrees?
I was first gen and went into engineering and did fine, even though a different science might have been my first pick if money was no object. I knew I had to have a career track right out of undergrad.

What you may not know about being poor is that you don't pick up merchandise unless you already know the price of it. I knew the other degrees were not in my budget.

Lots of lesser prepared kids get weeded out of “useful” majors like engineering, biology, computer science, physics & statistics. Even nursing (although Princeton doesn’t offer that).

The chance at being "weeded out" is the price of admission to that environment. I had a suspicion that to advance in those other areas where career track was less clear, may involve "connections" and family advice which is something I didn't have. If I had gone that route and hit a dead end because of what I lacked, than this gamble (aiming for a highly ranked college) would not have been worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kids from lower economic backgrounds have not had the benefit of private tutoring and elite HS rigor to prepare them for college hence the lower GPA. [If they're not prepared to be there, they shouldn't be there.]

They may not have been held to the same academic standards as an elite HS. They probably know cheating is not ok but if everyone you know does it in school, how to you really understand the impact? [If they are smart enough to be at Princeton, they are smart enough to know that cheating is absolutely unacceptable.]

For jobs, I think you need to take out the jobs that we’re gotten through connections. Lower income kids don’t have a pipeline into a high paying job interview.

[Few full-pay kids have this either. And the lack of connections is counterbalanced by the fact that many, many companies are eager to make diversity hires.]

When you’re the president of a university, you can have a say in such things. Alas, you’re not, and it’s not up to you to say who should & shouldn’t be admitted.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't be as concerned for Princeton low-income grads compared to those from elite but far less publicly recognized schools (top LACs, Tufts, WashU, etc.).

The higher income students at those places will be fine. They come from circles where those schools are well-regarded. The lower income students will not be; name brand will do almost nothing for them outside of graduate school recognition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students whose donut hole parents can barely scrape to pay school's bills are in worse position. They don't get money/opportunities from financial aid or wealthy parents so less opportunities than both extremes. Also there is guilt of draining family resources.

Hard disagree. I was a first generation college student and my kids are "donut hole." You have no idea how hard it is to navigate every single step of undergraduate education if you don't have anyone to give you good advice. Where do I live? How do I choose classes? When do I choose a major? How do I find an internship? How do I identify a mentor? Who can help advise me on next steps after getting my degree?

I attended a big flagship university, so there was literally no one to help with those decisions until I basically stumbled into a mentorship relationship with someone who thought I had potential.

[Anonymous]

I am the person upthread who mentors first-gen students.

My take on it is that first-gen kids from big cities (NY, SF, Boston) tend to be better-prepared, heavily because big cities tend to have magnet schools and scholarship programs for prep schools that both create networks and prepare kids for academic rigor well before kids get there. That is part of why getting into Stuyvesant (which is about 50% FARMS) is a golden ticket for many poor immigrant kids--it gives you access to Stuy's alumni network which is full of people who have been through elite colleges and can give good advice... as well as prepares you for any university academically before you arrive. Same thing with Prep for Prep, which prepares kids from minority groups to attend prep schools on scholarships for high school, giving them preparation on every level before they start.

It is the poor kids from smaller cities and towns that have more trouble adjusting because they don't have those opportunities to expand their network and they don't have as many opportunities to prepare themselves academically. They're limited by their local high school.

[Anonymous]

PP here. One of the kids I mentor is from a small midwestern town and told me they don't have anyone to ask these questions to because they literally (until college) had never met anyone who works in their chosen career field. Probably nobody in their chosen field within hundreds of miles of their hometown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was a senior survey at Princeton which had a breakdown for GPA across income levels, first-gen status, etc: https://projects.dailyprincetonian.com/senior-survey-2022/academics.html

50% of first-gen students had a 3.6 GPA or higher, compared to 69% of non-first gen students.

The lowest income students by family household (below 40K) at Princeton had an average GPA of a 3.5, while the highest income students had a 3.72.

32% of the lowest income students reported cheating on an assignment or exam, compared to 21% of students overall.

Only 49% of students on financial aid reported having a job lined up for graduation, compared to 62% of those not on FA. Expected income for those on FA was 84K one year after graduating, compared to 124K for those not on FA. Students on all household income levels below 125K reported expected earnings under 84K, while all those over that level reported at least 115K.

These are considerable gaps. If higher ed is supposed to be the great equalizer, why are Princeton grads seeing such discrepancies corresponding with their background?

I thought the post would document these kids flunking out. What a joke when we are talking about a 3.5 vs a 3.7…both groups are doing well.

Also, the median income of $84k is still way above their peers at state schools…and they are graduating debt-free.

There will always be gaps between kids that come from means and those that do not.

Feel bad for all the low income kids that go to low-ranked state schools, take on tons of loans and take 6 years to graduate…or worse, not at all.

[Anonymous]

I was one of the poors at my prestigious university. I lived at home and spent 3.5 hours per day in transit, and had 2 part time jobs. I had a decent GPA but could have done better if l didn’t have to commute and work. Don’t just assume those lower GPAs signal not having a high level of talent, preparation or work ethic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here. One of the kids I mentor is from a small midwestern town and told me they don't have anyone to ask these questions to because they literally (until college) had never met anyone who works in their chosen career field. Probably nobody in their chosen field within hundreds of miles of their hometown.

I'm the FG student above, and although I was "low income" in general, I was "middle class" for my community. I came from a town so small that the middle and high schools had been consolidated, and like your student above didn't know anyone studying in my chosen field. I worked while I was in school, and I worked summers for pay rather than for experience because I had no idea how to get where I wanted to go. Heck, I had no idea where I wanted to go, except that I knew that the first step was keeping my head down and getting outstanding grades. I kind of hoped everything would fall into place after that. It took years to understand the places where I could have done something different, and I still feel lucky that I ended up in a great job that is miles different from the manual labor my parents did until old age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn’t go to Princeton, but I was a first gen student and Pell grant recipient at a private college in the mid 00s. It was hard. One huge difference in my experience vs my wealthier peers was internships. I had to work during college, often 2-3 jobs, so I couldn’t take unpaid internships because I needed money for tuition, room and board, food, etc. The lack of experience made it much more difficult to get a job, especially during a recession.

Same. And study abroad programs were unaffordable for me.

[Anonymous]

It really means many of them were academically less qualified to get into Princeton in the first place. They took advantage of the rest of the applicants, got a free ride (FA and more), and now they're asking for more free rides?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a senior survey at Princeton which had a breakdown for GPA across income levels, first-gen status, etc: https://projects.dailyprincetonian.com/senior-survey-2022/academics.html

50% of first-gen students had a 3.6 GPA or higher, compared to 69% of non-first gen students.

The lowest income students by family household (below 40K) at Princeton had an average GPA of a 3.5, while the highest income students had a 3.72.

32% of the lowest income students reported cheating on an assignment or exam, compared to 21% of students overall.

Only 49% of students on financial aid reported having a job lined up for graduation, compared to 62% of those not on FA. Expected income for those on FA was 84K one year after graduating, compared to 124K for those not on FA. Students on all household income levels below 125K reported expected earnings under 84K, while all those over that level reported at least 115K.

These are considerable gaps. If higher ed is supposed to be the great equalizer, why are Princeton grads seeing such discrepancies corresponding with their background?

These "discrepancies" demonstrate what should be extremely obvious to everyone, which is that the "elite" schools are admitting low-income / first-gen students who are not academically qualified, and are doing so for ideological reasons.

Totally agree! It’s just feel-good window-dressing by those “elite” universities. Has AA/DEI helped minority communities? Remember that AA started in the 1960’s. A disastrous failure after 60 years of social experiments.