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]

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.

[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.

[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!