Upstairs-Downstairs at College

[msmemory_archive]

Harvard's noticing, maybe Wellesley won't be far behind. This is exactly the disparity that I dream of addressing if I ever win the Lotto and can set up a specific fund at my alma mater, with the addition of fee-based lessons such as riding or music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/education/11harvard.html
Many Harvard officials, Dr. Faust said, feared that cost was driving the choices students made about graduate school and careers and that it had created what amounted to a two-class system among Harvard undergraduates. Mr. Fitzsimmons referred to it as “the upstairs downstairs syndrome.”

The officials said, for example, that often only the wealthy students can afford to pursue highly valuable but unpaid research opportunities with professors, take unpaid summer internships, study abroad or even spend time with their friends.

Comments

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

This has been well-known outside of Harvard for a long time. In mathematics and some other disciplines there are NSF-funded Research Experience for Undergraduates programs. All or most of them occur during the summer, and as far as I know, all of them pay the students a stipend so they can afford to do this rather than take a summer job. And they pay for travel and living expenses during the program. These programs are open to students across the country, and may draw some from overseas. Many schools are now trying similar programs in-house.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Ironically, when my sister did one of those (though it was a DOE program of the same sort, not the NSF ONE), it turned out her boss wasn't allowed by his university (Princeton) to write her a recommendation for grad school. Even though her work was excellent. And he'd hired her cuz she was a farm kid and knew how to fix stuff, which came in handy when testing fusion reactor equipment. Go figure. And yeah, me and my siblings were totally the target market for an experience like that. But not being able to get a recommendation from that boss greatly curtailed the usefulness of the internship, great job or not.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

That's... stupid. I am increasingly frustrated at stupid regulations, although the ones I am currently frustrated with are the ones for student organizations where I work. I had to ride on the bus (not van, not carpool, not public transportation, bus) for a field trip sponsored by four student groups this weekend, because they couldn't go without a chaperone. THEY ARE ADULTS! (Sorry, frustration levels are high on this.) However, this did not stop one student from not paying attention to when we were meeting to get back on the bus and holding up the rest of the group until we found her.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Oy. Yeah. I suggested that my sister gripe to the DOE that this had happened, but she was kinda busy with grad school aps and finishing her degree, when she found out about it.

Field trip regulations. Oh man. At least you found her: we actually had a teacher leave a student behind on a field trip at my high school. The field trip was to a nearby state university, an hour away in a BAD part of town. I think it was absentmindedness on the part of both the student AND the teacher.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Amen, sister, amen, from someone who was in the same boat.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Oh really, they've caught onto this now?

I am so entirely familiar with this phenomenon. Of course, I'd probably still be in the theatre field now if I'd been able to really pursue that sort of thing, or living in Ireland. Only one of those two is still appealing.

Travel abroad and unpaid internships? Not so much. 3 jobs senior year? I'm pretty good at using Windows and washing dishes.

This was a problem for me even in graduate school, where I couldn't look at anything that didn't pay.

Granted, had I been in another field (like computers), I'm not sure it would have been as much of a problem to have to choose work over unpaid opportunities, and the opportunities might not have been unpaid to begin with.

[liamstliam.livejournal.com]

I will search for the link, but there's another NYT article today that says many of the Ivy hopefuls are taking up squash -- a fairly expensive and exclusive sport -- because it gives them an edge up on admissions because there just are notg a lot of top-level squash players around.

Cheek (tongue in)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

How far we've fallen. Whatever happened to polo as the exclusive, expensive prep sport? People can't afford horses any more?

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

My father hoped I would have filled my Phys Ed requirements with sports that would help me get ahead socially and professionally after college, by which he meant squash, tennis, or golf. Instead, I took fencing, archery, and swimming.

[laurion]

Heh. For entertainment value I took squash as a PE at Brandeis, and I play with some friends most weeks.

None of us are top-level, but we are all shmart people just having a fun time and getting some exercise.

I'm not sure where the expense comes in, unless it refers to the relative scarcity of courts to play on, requiring one to pay some sort of club membership to get one. The racquets can be found inexpensively online ($20 on ebay even!) and the balls are no more expensive than baseballs or soccer balls. Even going new, you can get a racquet for $50, which is a smaller investment than a normal hockey, baseball, or football player might incur.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Actually, when I was at Wellesley, my financial aid went abroad with me. And I was on some pretty substantial financial aid. But yes, I couldn't afford unpaid summer internships, which was a real problem experience-wise when I graduated into the recession.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize you could take financial aid for a semester abroad, or I'd have been all over it. My specialty was translation of French, after all, and I would have loved to go to Aix. I thought you had to be brilliant enough to get a grant, or rich enough to pay for it directly, and I was neither.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

That might have been a change made in the few years between our times at Wellesley, or perhaps the Spanish department was a lot better about getting the information out than the French department.

I had to apply to one particular study abroad program if I wanted to keep my financial aid, because it was the one Spain program that Wellesley was an actual member of. We paid Wellesley like it was a normal tuition year, and they paid the program. So for the cost of a regular year at Wellesley, I got airfare and trips paid for as well as classes and room and board. Wellesley even upped the amount of their grant to me to compensate for the work-study money I wouldn't be able to earn.

Mind you, that was nearly 20 years ago. I'm hoping the situation is the same today, but I can't say for sure. Also, with the strong Euro, the program might not be able to work the same way now as it did then.

[a-c-fiorucci.livejournal.com]

Interesting.

When I did summer research (in chemistry, at Carleton) it was paid, I think out of the professor's funding (whatever that was). I remember my professor being really excited when I got a grant to fund my own research for my second summer (after junior year) from a local industry organization.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

I remember being in college as an English major, watching not only my drama-major friends but my science-major friends keep up a schedule that simply did not permit a job. Lab classes ate up so much time that they couldn't hold down any more than a token job (maybe 6-8 hours a week, probably less).

Interestingly, most of my hard-science major friends were not on financial aid. An English degree - for those who are already accustomed to living on a pittance!