College Admissions At High End Universities

Many middle to lower class families cannot afford to send their kids to school and with Ivy League schools like Harvard and Princeton giving out generous financial packages to their student, who mostly come from wealthy background. The poorer students are on the losing end because they are not given the opportunity for aid. As Terry Hartle, the senior vice president of the American Council of Education, says, "Smart poor kids go to college at the same rate as stupid rich kids." What this is saying is that the wealthy families have vastly more opportunity to succeed in the college system even though they have equal or lesser smarts. Well respected schools such as NYU are now admitting students based on the financial fit not by merit.

Unfortunately, these children cannot complete their education because they have to travel with their family and learn to manage at a young age a life of hard labor. This however does not diminish their dreams of completing high school and some day attending a university so that they will not have to live the life of struggle their parents did to sustain the household. In cities like Detroit, MI there is a large population of low income Hispanic and African American families. The public school system unfortunately cannot potentially promote a high-quality education. The majority of these students do not receive an entrance level education simply because of living standards. Income plays an important role in education opportunities regarding the quality education each student can pertain. Since the minorities in that area are low-income they cannot afford to attend a private high school that can better prepare them for college. According to a research done at the University of Texas-Pan American, “certain racial or ethnicity factors should play a role in the admissions decision.” (Marklein)

College tuition has skyrocketed over the past decades making the pathway to college less accessible to low-income families. According to the

Social class is a large faction of people who have similar positions in an economic system. In an exemplary world, all students would have an equal shot at success, excellent schools, and educators that dedicate themselves and their time to achieving this goal. However, social class can significantly affect a student's success, highlighting the correlation between low socioeconomic statuses and academic problems. In all social groups, class plays a significant role in the attainment of children in education. Unfortunately, this has always been the case and the effects are just more evident today. Families from high social classes are more likely to obtain a greater level of education than those in low social classes. Members of upper social classes tend to be better educated and have higher incomes; therefore, they are better able to supply educational advantages to their children as well. Being in a financially disadvantaged can also affect a child’s performance during school.  It is important, therefore, to examine the way in which education is distributed through social class. Between societal pressures, expectations and parental negligence, children can be negatively impacted in their pursuit for future success through their education as exemplified through “College Pressures” and “The Sanctuary of School”.

Recently there has been a lot of debate about the importance of college education. Students are asking if it’s worth the debt to attend a four year university or community college. Some are thinking what are the benefits of a degree is in the workforce. With college tuition increasing and state fundings lowering, low income students are struggling to attain a higher education. College institutions should have a role to provide students higher education and equal opportunity to students to increase social mobility yet intergenerational reproduction of privilege has produced inequality in education.

The first determinant of one’s fate is their family’s background. Almost none of the children from low-income families made it through college. With the expenses of college today, I’m actually not surprised by that statistic. Of the children from low-income families, only 4 percent had a college degree at age 28, compared to 45 percent of the children from higher-income backgrounds. "That 's a shocking tenfold

. In the article “Public College Boosting Aid to Wealthy as Poor Are Left Behind,” by Marian Wand, the author shares a story of little girl, Shauniqua Epps, she is 19 years old. Epps family lives in subsidized housing in South Philadelphia. Epps’ father died when she was in the third grade, her mother lives on social security which provides $698 a month. She has a good GPA and is also good in sports. She applied for three colleges for higher education, but none of the colleges provided financial aid to her. She did not go to any of the colleges because she could not afford the tuition. No one in family can support her because Epps’ mother does not have enough knowledge to encourage her. This proves that the students from low socio-economic background were not encouraged by their

I think Montsios’ point that, “Class standing has a significant impact on the chance for educational achievement” (Monsios 193). I think this statement is very true, because it is very apparent that there is a huge education gap in the United States due to income. People of higher incomes can have the luxury of sending their kids to better schools, private or public, and have the ability to give them a college education without having to worry about the financial costs, while people of lower classes cannot have this luxury. This is absolutely ridiculous, because this country was founded on the idea of equality, and having an equal and free country to pursue opportunity. Just like the educational side of this, people also struggle with in the sense of survival and

Imagine a brilliant high school child named Michael who has a high GPA and is enrolled in the honors and AP curriculum; he precipitates in multitudes of extracurricular activities including sports and clubs. He gets accepted to many schools and received many scholarships. However, even with financial aid, he and his family are economically deprived and therefore incapable in funding a college education. This scenario is not an imagination but a common event in modern day America. Fifty percent of eighteen to twenty-five year old adults who did not attend a higher education institution experienced a similar situation (Why). These people belong in a university, an establishment whose nature is to judge base on the intelligence not on the

Also, with most low income students coming from backgrounds of working parents, they are not given the privilege to see all the benefits of obtaining their education to build their life in a great career. As wonderfully stated by Bellin, “At a time when social mobility has stalled and the poorest are still suffering the effects of the last recession, investing in college access for students from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds should be a priority.” (134). When students are shown the importance of education, instead of just hearing about it, they are more likely to understand the benefits and continue on that path and pass their knowledge down to their children. All the lowest socioeconomic class needs is a boost in that positive direction to start the domino effect, so why do we choose to unethically give the cold shoulder to the class that currently has the most need for help and would benefit from it the

Class can restrict someone from taking a path they want to pursue either because they are being discouraged from trying it or because they don’t have the means to get themselves there. The article in the Washington Post titled “Why are working class kids less likely to get elite jobs? They study too hard at college,” outlines why kids from higher classes are more likely to get elite jobs. They say “Basically, if we think of economic inequality as a sporting competition, elite parents give their kids a leg up, not only by being able to afford the equipment necessary to play but also by teaching them the rules of the game and giving them insider tips on how to win.” I believe that this is a good illustration of ways that members of the working class are at a disadvantage.

The parents attempt to set their children up for success. The parent focus on finding schools that have rigorous curriculum and a variety of extracurricular activities. Children from poor families tend not to have the opportunities as the rich, they lack qualified teachers, due to test scores being low this restricts the students opportunities for pursing higher education and not enough money is being invested in public schools. Children from rich families tend to pursue higher education then children from poor families. Children from rich families tend to have college degrees that help them find jobs, while children from poor families tend to only have a high school

“ Historically, low-income students as a group have performed less well than high-income students on most measures of academic success” (Reardon, 2013). Typically low-income families come from low-income parts of the state making a school that does not have as much funding as a higher economic schools does lack in resources for their students. The school then has lower paid teachers and administrators, with lower quality supplies. This results in a school which typically has faculty who do not perform as well as the well-funded schools. “The law fails to address the pressing problems of unequal educational resources across schools serving wealthy and poor children” (Hammond, 2007). Students from low and high income families will not be able to achieve the same education because their education simply is not the same.

These expensive cities, such as Washington, D.C. and New York, appealing to what Lind calls in “Intellectuals Are Freaks”, “bohemian rich kids”, (Lind 2) and limiting opportunities for intellectual growth in other locations where money isn’t as plenty. Students that come from a lower socioeconomic status tend to encounter a wall of resistance that may prevent them from applying to colleges they feel incapable of attending and succeeding at, due to the fear of inferiority that arises from already being at a set disadvantage compared to students of the upper-class society. Studies (“Why Economic Disadvantage Becomes Educational Disadvantage” by Sam Fulwood III) show that only 3 percent of students from 146 of the most-selective public and private colleges are from the bottom socioeconomic quartile compared to the 67 percent of students from the top income quartile who attend these same schools. Here, the economic divide suggests a educational divide as well that weakens the education

This disadvantages bright students who lack upper class resources. Lower class students tend to make poorly informed, random, or impulse decisions about college: where to go, how to get in, and what college is about. Given the unlikelihood that their parents have never set foot on a college campus, academically promising lower-class students can become overwhelmed during the application process. If these students are looking towards applying to top universities like the Ivy League, they are competing against “groomed” upper class kids who know how to write application essays by parents, high school counselors, and professionals paid for by their parents. Low-class students find themselves ignorant about admission requirements, costs of college and possibilities of financial aid, and how to apply.