I never thought I’d be where I am today: heading into my senior year at an expensive private university. Despite working hard all throughout school to make it to college, I had my doubts that I’d even be able to go. My mother worked hard to provide for my brother and I, but because of her status as a single-parent and her lack of a college education, her options were limited. There was no way my mother was going to be able to afford to help me pay for college; we could barely afford rent, bills, food, and the bare necessities. Even so, I saw college as my way to change the situation of my family, to give us a better life. And I was determined to get there.
Often, college is thought of as the great equalizer between the rich and the poor, between white folks and people of color, between men and women. Insert any group holding a privileged status versus a group holding an oppressed status in a particular context and you hear the exact same thing. Getting a higher education is seen as a way out, a way to even the playing field. But is that really the case? From my own experience, I say no; and the experience of other students like me would likely say the same. Somehow, obtaining a degree is supposed to do undo years of battling against systemic barriers. When you actually get to college, as a low-income student, you already begin at a disadvantage, and inequality persists. Because of the inequalities that persist, students from high-income families are eight times more likely than students from low-income families. to receive their bachelor’s degree prior to age 24.
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Inclusion
Students from low-income backgrounds often struggle with feeling excluded because of their differing responsibilities and life experiences. When I first arrived at my university, I didn’t really notice the ways in which I felt segregated and isolated. I was too swept up in the experience of doing something no one in my family had previously done: attend college. But as time went on, the differences in my experiences and the responsibilities became clearer, and I began to feel segregated and isolated. While other students received an allowance from their parents, I was paying for everything on my own. That limited what I was able to participate in. I couldn’t make spontaneous trips to nice restaurants. I couldn’t participate in Winter Carnival, in which our university rents out a ski resort for a weekend and provides activities for students to do on the mountains. I had to budget all of my money carefully, and couldn’t afford the types of stores my friends shopped at, which was one way to socialize and integrate. I had a different family dynamic from many of my friends, having to help support my family from afar but also not having the same type of relationship with my family members that my peers did, and my peers didn’t understand that. When you can’t relate to the people around you, it’s hard to feel integrated into the university, and when you feel segregated and isolated from your peers around you, it not only hurts you socially, but also can hurt you academically, emotionally, and psychologically. And when others begin to see you as not like them, they start to distance themselves from you as well, and you start to, understandably, feel somewhat lonely.
In addition, students from low-income backgrounds fall prey to stereotypes that circulate about folks from low-income backgrounds. You listen to your peers spout off about welfare queens and the fact that people are poor because they are lazy, while you have to conceal the fact that you’ve received government assistance for a large portion of life, not because your mom was lazy, but because supporting two children on a hardworking housekeeper’s salary is not enough without support. You have to contain the shock of your peers when they find out you’ve never visited an ocean in your life because your family couldn’t afford to have vacations. You’ve dealt with assumptions that because you come from a low-income family you haven’t had access to the same kinds of foods and dishes they have. You listen to your friends complain about the dining hall food, yet you don’t quite understand the problem because it’s probably healthier than the food you ate during childhood because you can get more bang for your buck buying processed foods that will feed your household for a month, versus a tiny amount of “healthy” foods that will feed you for maybe a week. You have to calm the surprise from peers that as a Colorado native, you’ve never been skiing or snowboarding because it’s way too expensive. You have to deal with assumptions made about you because you are not wearing rags and don’t fit the physical description for “poor.” You have to try and convince yourself that you are worthy, despite the fact that you’ve rarely left your state, and couldn’t dream of leaving the country, while your peers have traveled through multiple countries around the world.
Often, I, like many other low-income students, have felt that I don’t deserve to be at my university, or the functions it hosts. I felt that I was lucky to just be at the fancy dinners and extravagant events, that people like me didn’t deserve to be there, that we weren’t good enough to be there, and that we should be thankful to have been invited. They are not environments that welcome us with open arms, so we feel like outsiders, though we worked extremely hard to be able to get to where we are. It’s hard to feel like we’ve earned entrance, rather than were lucky to attend.
Access to Experiential Opportunities
Though many universities offer numerous incredible experiential opportunities, they are not always accessible to all, especially students from low-income backgrounds. Studying abroad is one such opportunity. Luckily, my university makes it very much possible for low-income students to study abroad, though a scholars’ program that pays for airfare, application fees, and other required costs, and through the application of all financial aid to the study abroad program. Because of these factors, along with the excellent support of our Office of International Education, I did have the opportunity to spend three months living and studying in Costa Rica, and it was an incredible experience that I have so much gratitude for. It taught me a lot about myself, and a lot about others, and allowed me to experience so many firsts, like visiting an ocean for the first time. But not all universities have the strong programs that mine does. I was lucky; but many other low-income students don’t have the resources or support to study internationally for a semester. And that is a damn shame because they have earned that opportunity, yet can’t do it because of factors beyond their control.
Unpaid internships are yet another opportunity that low-income folks don’t always have the opportunity to participate in. When you are paying for everything on your own, it’s hard to justify taking on an unpaid internship when you need money to eat and pay bills and to survive. A low-income student might have to work a job or two or three to make ends meet, and not have time nor resources to complete an unpaid internship in addition to coursework and work and helping your family from afar. A low-income student may not own a car, and therefore will be limited in options that can be reached expediently by public transportation. For me, I can’t afford not to have a job, so I can’t justify taking on an unpaid position either during the school year, when I need to work and do coursework and try to participate in clubs, or during the summer, when I need to be able to pay my rent and my bills. And often, people respond by telling you to just make it happen. That was actually told to be by an alumni panelist once. But easier said than done. It’s a lot more complex than that.
Never mind finding the money and resources to complete an unpaid internship, but where would I even start? My mother doesn’t have a friend circle of business professionals that I could network with, never mind the fact that I didn’t know how to network when I entered college. How would I find opportunities in the first place? I didn’t learn what business casual meant until I entered college, and I never learned how to create a resume. I had only interviewed a couple times in my life for scholarships and part-time jobs, but what would I say in an interview for an internship? Low-income students are often not already equipped with the skills we as a society deem critical for securing internships, so how are they supposed to have a competitive edge?
The Work/Academic/Extracurricular Balancing Act
There is an assumption in college culture that to stand out upon graduation, one ought to be doing well in classes, participate in a couple of extracurricular activities, and complete a couple of internships by the time one graduates. But if you also have to worry about possibly being unprepared for college coursework, which I felt I was, or juggling a job or two or three in addition to academics and extracurricular and internships, and having personal and family situations to deal with on top of all of that, how is it possible to do well in all of it? There are exceptional students who are able to juggle it all. And they are killing it. However, that isn’t the majority. And it’s not because we’re not good enough or skilled enough to handle it all, but because it is a lot to ask of us to do everything other students appear to be doing in addition to fulfilling all of our other obligations and attempting to overcome structural barriers at the same time. Often, we have so much on our plates that we feel like we’re drowning.
I know that feeling all too well. For me, I only had one job -- my work-study job -- until the end of my junior year of college, and struggled to balance that with four classes, and two main extracurricular activities. It takes me so much longer than my peers to understand and process materials, and in addition to that, class, two clubs, and work, I never had free time, and in addition, I also failed at taking care of myself adequately. I would get very little sleep, wouldn’t exercise as much as I would have liked, and ate very little and poorly. I would get sick often, and dealing with situations back home and trying to manage my anxiety disorder would affect me poorly in multiple ways. My junior year, I started to get better at self-care, but that happened at the expense of my grades and academic performance. I have yet to create a balance between everything. By the end of my junior year, I started a job and an internship in March, and I struggled to keep up with everything. I needed the job, but also it was an incredible opportunity. And I didn’t want to be left behind without having an internship throughout my college career, because that’s an expectation, and also, I thought it might help me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and help me not feel so lost. And though I enjoyed it all, it was really hard to keep up with everything, and my performance in class began to slip and my fulfilling of obligations began to slip and my self-care was better than my first year but still not that great. I was drowning.
Support
Though socioeconomic diversity is something many campuses try hard to achieve, there are not always to resources and support on campuses to make that possible. Through students may receive sufficient aid for their first year at a campus, there may not be enough aid awarded to them to keep them for the full four years, and those students may be forced to transfer, or leave college all together because it is no longer financially possible for them to be there. Students may have to leave to take care of their families and loved ones. Students may feel so isolated and beaten down and unwelcome and unwanted because of their socioeconomic status that it’s better for them to leave the University. Often, when students do try to integrate into a University, there’s not always a community of folks that understand them, and that makes it harder. There are not always resources and support for situations that low-income students face, so it makes it harder for them to keep going when they are facing so many barriers without the support to overcome them. One of the biggest aspects of support I think is missing in supporting low-income students is resources and support for the immense amount of guilt that we feel. We feel guilty for leaving our friends and family back home, fearing that we didn’t help them enough. We feel guilty because college seems like such a selfish thing to undertake when we’ve spent our lives always helping the ones we love. We feel guilty that others like us don’t have access to the same opportunities that we may now have access to, not because they don’t deserve them, not because they haven’t earned them, but because of the barriers that their socioeconomic status has created. We feel like we were able to attend college over them because of luck. We know that they deserved to be here too, but because of forces beyond their control, they can’t. We forget amidst all of the guilt mixed with unwavering gratitude that we feel that we worked hard to get to where we are, despite the fact that others did to, and that it’s not our fault for that inequity, but the systemic barriers that exist for members of our socioeconomic class.
Pushing Against the System
When you are not a low-income student who is trying to overcome systemic barriers to complete your degree, it’s difficult to understand the inequalities that low-income students face. I feel like it’s a tad easier to explain this with a visual. Let’s say that a higher-income student is represented by a new car and the lower-income student is represented by a used car. The new car is more expensive at first, but because it has no miles and is not as worn, it tends to do well on performance. The likelihood of it having mechanical problems, besides the occasional recall, is slim, and though the initially insurance cost more, those purchasing a new car are probably more likely to be able to afford full-coverage insurance, which will cover them in a number of situations, and if they are able to put out a higher deductible and pay all at once, their insurance will be much lower. Also, the new car likely has a warranty, so that if anything does go wrong, they are likely to have resources and be covered. The lower-income student is represented by a used car. The used car is much less expensive, but has many miles and is worn, having been used my multiple previous owners in multiple facets. Because it is used, the risks of things going wrong is likely higher, even if the previous owners have kept it in the best of shape. Insurance may be cheaper, depending on how old the car is, but those purchasing a cheap, used car, are less likely to be able to afford full-coverage insurance and only liability, which means they will be held liable for other things not covered by their insurance, which can be financially devastating. And their insurance, though initially cheaper, will likely be higher because they cannot afford to put out a higher deductible, nor will they be able to pay for their insurance all at once rather than in installments. Though the two cars both have the ability to reach destinations, the truth is, the used car may face more problems and challenges along the way because of the initial circumstances under which the car was purchased in the first place. Every now and then, you’ll get a new car that lasts a very short time or a used car that keeps on going with a relatively smooth journey, but those are the exceptions, rather than the norm. The same goes for low-income students. They are likely to face more barriers in completing a four-year degree than high-income students, and though some may break all the norms, they are the exception rather than the norm. It’s not that they don’t have the ability to succeed in college, and not because they are not exceptional. It’s because of the inequalities that persist before and during college, and the barriers they must overcome, that low-income students are less likely to obtain a four-year degree and their high-income peers, and that is a damn shame and societal inequity that needs to be addressed before we can claim that college is the great equalizer.
