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

[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.