(no subject)

[msmemory_archive]

I hope the administrations of other fine and expensive institutions in this region also read this article in today's Globe:
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/05/12/the_harvard_disadvantage/
I never even considered frivolities like Junior Year Abroad. Not with parents who considered it a big issue when I asked for a new winter jacket during my freshman year.

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

*nods*

The rich girls were like a different species.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

The Wendy Wellesleys, yeah. I remember listening to one say, in her southern drawl, "I might get a job this summer, or maybe I'll just live off of my daddy's money." My jaw just about hit the floor.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

Frivolity? Interesting way to think about it. My kids get winter jackets from Salvation Army, but I don't consider a junior year abroad a frivolity. It's an incredible chunk of education - and, like, many things that are good for kids, costs money that not everyone has - though, if you do it right, it can cost very little.

[dreda.livejournal.com]

This.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

If there was financial aid available for study abroad, other than at the Fulbright level, it wasn't disclosed to the students. So asking my family for a junior year in France would've been an unthinkable expense.

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

By the time I got there, there was financial aid for travel abroad if you applied to the right programs. I know the one in Cordoba, Spain was one, because that's what I did, and all my financial aid traveled with me. The college even upped the amount of my grant to cover the money I wouldn't be able to make in work-study while I was there. So for the same price as another year at Wellesley, I got a year in Spain, including airfare for each semester, room and board, books, and a few trips. I believe the Aix en Provence (sp?) program in France was similarly covered by financial aid.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

I went to college in this era too, plus with most of the science majors you couldn't go abroad and finish in time. And yet for years I felt I'd failed to do something important by not doing it! Go figure THAT out. I'm better now thanks.

[tpau]

this. at my scholl a year abraod cost the same as a year nto abraod. plus plane tickets but everythign else was covered. and while coats came from thrift stores and furniture came form the curb, education came at whatever price.

[laurion]

Always a huge gulf between the haves and the havenotes, even when both are given the same opportunities. I can recall scrounging for laundry money, opting for the 14 meals a week plan instead of the full 21, skipping textbooks in favor of more note-taking, etc. I lucked out with full time jobs during the non-academic times to keep from having to work on campus my first two years. I opted to live on campus all years because various financial options will pay for that where they won't cover off-campus housing. My dad was driving passenger buses at the time I went to school, and my mom has been on permanent medical disability since I was in high school.

Fortunately, despite a large segment of the school having an air of privilege, there always seems to be a good crowd of geeks there who don't care what you are, but who you are.

[cellio]

When I was in college I don't remember even hearing about study-abroad options. Were it possible I wouldn't have been able to, but I didn't even know I was missing out on it at the time. Maybe I wasn't and it's a newer thing. I sure do hear a lot more about it now than then, including from the non-rich.

Interesting article; thanks for sharing it.