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Greek Life's Exacerbation Of Inequality

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Buying Opportunity: Greek Life’s Exacerbation of Inequality The founders of America’s universal education system prided themselves in building a system that offered everyone the opportunity to educate themselves in order to become mobile in class hierarchy. If someone is expressing interest in furthering a career, a common tip is to pursue higher education. Education is thought of as the “avenue to social mobility,” (Armstrong 12). However, the United States’ current educational model is contradictory to this premise, as money is arguably necessary to access opportunity. In the current model, students from working class homes often opt out of traditional universities for community college, or avoid college altogether in order to …show more content…

Eighty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have been Greek affiliated in addition to all US presidents, excluding Bill Clinton and Barack Obama (Chang). Greek organizations often attribute this success to the values that are instilled in their members. A Greek advertisement from California University of Pennsylvania marketed membership opportunities through connections, leadership and friendship (Cal U). However, these privileges come at a price, and Greek organizations fail to consider that success may be predetermined by the students able to access the system rather than by membership itself. High price tags discourage students of lower socioeconomic status and create a disproportionately affluent membership within the fraternity or sorority. Consequently, Greek organizations are giving privileged students additional benefits and disadvantaging poorer students. A selling point in “going Greek” is to have lifelong connections. Therefore, Greek life infringes upon class mobility, not only within the college, but throughout professional careers. National leaders do not have an advantage because of values, but because of connections that were only available to them due to their parents’ high socioeconomic status when they were …show more content…

African Americans, who make up roughly twenty percent of the population, have significantly higher incarceration rates and health problems, relating to struggles of the United States’ lower economic bracket (Davis). Rather than adopting methods to create a more inclusive environment, as colleges nationwide have done with Affirmative Action policies, Greek organizations do not acknowledge this problem. The National Panhellenic Council does not report the demographic makeup of fraternities and sororities. Princeton voluntarily provided these statistics and found 77 percent of its Greek students were white, even though whites made up only 47 percent of the overall student population (Chang). The success of the Greek system at Historically Black Colleges and Universities proves that under-representation is not due to lack of interest. Greek members at HBCUs have reported more student involvement and engagement than minorities independent of Greek affiliation at predominantly white colleges (Patton 112-123). While Greek life has many positive effects for members, it is important to evaluate who is

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