Furthering the Divide
I’m very grateful to be on financial aid. Financial aid was one of the major factors that I had to consider when deciding to come to Yale. But the student income contribution has hindered me in some areas, especially when it comes to summer programs. Before I came here, I didn’t know how the system worked. It was very unclear to me, and I received outside scholarships for my first year in college, so my contribution was covered. But my second year, I saw that the contribution increased, and no one told me when I was supposed to pay it, how I was supposed to pay it, etc. I just saw that I was supposed to make X amount over the summer. So for me, that meant I needed to get a paid job—otherwise, I would be in debt. That meant turning down a lot of career-advancing opportunities that wouldn’t pay me or required me to pay them, or other paid opportunities that might have paid less. I was fortunate enough to find a research position this summer, but it wasn’t my first choice. I thought that the position would still look good on my resume because it was science-oriented, but I’m interested in global health, and the position had very little to do with my career interests. It would have been more helpful if I could have taken a position with the Global Health Brigades or Unite for Sight, but those were opportunities that I would have had to pay for, instead of them paying me. That’s the main thing––not having the freedom to be able to spend the summers how I want to. There are people who don’t have to worry about these financial pressures, and almost have a leap ahead; now that they’ve had an amazing Global Health experience, they can put it on their resume or say that they’ve done this or that. But for me, since I had to work over the summer, my research job looks fine but not as relevant for my career path. It’s like Yale is furthering a divide: people who can already afford it are naturally getting ahead and can have this kind of summer experience, and people who can’t afford it have to give up the experience to find jobs that will pay them so they can satisfy the student effort contribution. I’m very lucky and blessed to have received a Yale position that was paid, but it’s really hard to come across paid summer jobs like that, especially your freshman year. A lot of people who needed to fulfill their student effort contribution requirement ended up doing mundane summer jobs that weren’t relevant to their field.
It’s infuriating to me that Yale advertises itself as a wonderful haven for you to come to, where even someone who is from a low-income background can succeed. To some extent you can, but Yale is putting up barriers like the student income contribution in their way, which wealthier students don’t have to overcome. Now that I know more about the contribution and the fact that my parents have the ability to pay for it, it makes me feel grateful that my parents can pay for it, but also upset that there are students who don’t have that parental support, and therefore have to deal with this every single year. It’s upsetting because if Yale is going to advertise itself that way, it needs to speak to the truth. Don’t draw low-income students in and then pull the money away from them.
I had known about the student effort contribution generally, but the details were and still are very unclear to me––like who I’m supposed to be paying the money to. My freshman year scholarships luckily covered the student income contribution for me, except for an extra $50 leftover, which probably got tacked on to my current bill. But the process was very unclear: all I knew was that freshman year I owed $1,000 and that sophomore year I owed $3,000, and that suddenly I was going to have to get a job to pay it off. That’s all I knew. Now, I think your parents are allowed to pay for it if you don’t, but I still don’t really know how the process works.
I’m blessed to be a part of a program called Matriculate, a program with the specific goal of helping low-income students get into college. Naturally, a lot of students who have that background are working, so I’ve been able to hear their perspectives, and I’ve seen a lot of socioeconomic diversity in that group. I think that Yale is probably more socioeconomically mixed than it appears, but no one wants to talk about financial aid. Instead, everyone likes to pretend that they aren’t financially stressed––that they aren’t working a ten-hour-a-week job and not getting enough sleep, and that they’re perfectly fine. In the groups that I’m in, you’re supposed to look like you’re perfectly fine and happy.
I think that no one talks about financial aid here because it’s so stigmatized. You have some really wealthy people who wear Canada Goose jackets and Hershel backpacks. You talk about who’s wealthy but you don’t talk about who’s low-income. Talking about being a low-income student is stigmatized, because if you do, people look at you and are like, “Oh, I’m so sorry, do you need me to pay for you? Do you need me to buy you this meal?” They start to pity low-income students, but no one wants to be pitied, and that’s not how they want to be treated.
I have a friend who lives with two wealthy students and his roommate, who, like him, is a low-income student. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of tension because he couldn’t help pay for the furniture. So then they just excluded him doing things in the suite and stopped inviting him to things. I haven’t experienced that, but there are a lot of stories like that here. It seems like here the response to finding out that someone comes from a low-income background is either pity or disdain and I don’t understand that. I also wish people talked about financial aid more candidly. People talk about it as though it’s a big taboo or flaw. I don’t understand why people stigmatize financial aid so much, and if we talked about it more, and if there were people who were more knowledgeable about it, that would help remove the stigma, and students would understand how to navigate campus better.
There are some areas on campus that are very homogenous, and are made up of one type of person, one socioeconomic group, or one ethnic background. There are some spaces that I shy away from: I don’t go there and don’t care to be there because I don’t feel comfortable there. Part of it is financial and socioeconomic. Spaces like that might not actively make you feel bad to your face, but it’s the elephant in the room.
I have a few friends from some of the clubs I’m in who will talk about this kind of stuff. It’s not just about the money, but also the whole system. Money plays a huge factor in creating that kind of exclusionary environment. Certain frats have reputations of taking only rich, international students, for example; my friend from home didn’t even want to rush a frat because of their reputation for excepting only wealthy people. He felt like he didn’t even have a chance to get in for that reason. I haven’t found a lot of groups on campus that discuss the detrimental effects of this sort of richer campus lifestyle. Especially if it’s a frat party, those spaces aren’t just white and rich, but also male and heteronormative. And that's not a place for me. Even when students in those spaces don’t actively insult me, when I enter them I feel like I don’t belong. I’m grateful to say that I haven’t had any direct instances when I felt disadvantaged or uncomfortable––I just know that there are certain spaces that are not for me, because of the creation of this white, wealthy culture that I don’t fit into. Getting rid of the student income contribution won’t completely change those spaces, but it might open up conversations that will educate the wealthy people who occupy them.
It’s infuriating to me that Yale advertises itself as a wonderful haven for you to come to, where even someone who is from a low-income background can succeed. To some extent you can, but Yale is putting up barriers like the student income contribution in their way, which wealthier students don’t have to overcome. Now that I know more about the contribution and the fact that my parents have the ability to pay for it, it makes me feel grateful that my parents can pay for it, but also upset that there are students who don’t have that parental support, and therefore have to deal with this every single year. It’s upsetting because if Yale is going to advertise itself that way, it needs to speak to the truth. Don’t draw low-income students in and then pull the money away from them.
I had known about the student effort contribution generally, but the details were and still are very unclear to me––like who I’m supposed to be paying the money to. My freshman year scholarships luckily covered the student income contribution for me, except for an extra $50 leftover, which probably got tacked on to my current bill. But the process was very unclear: all I knew was that freshman year I owed $1,000 and that sophomore year I owed $3,000, and that suddenly I was going to have to get a job to pay it off. That’s all I knew. Now, I think your parents are allowed to pay for it if you don’t, but I still don’t really know how the process works.
I’m blessed to be a part of a program called Matriculate, a program with the specific goal of helping low-income students get into college. Naturally, a lot of students who have that background are working, so I’ve been able to hear their perspectives, and I’ve seen a lot of socioeconomic diversity in that group. I think that Yale is probably more socioeconomically mixed than it appears, but no one wants to talk about financial aid. Instead, everyone likes to pretend that they aren’t financially stressed––that they aren’t working a ten-hour-a-week job and not getting enough sleep, and that they’re perfectly fine. In the groups that I’m in, you’re supposed to look like you’re perfectly fine and happy.
I think that no one talks about financial aid here because it’s so stigmatized. You have some really wealthy people who wear Canada Goose jackets and Hershel backpacks. You talk about who’s wealthy but you don’t talk about who’s low-income. Talking about being a low-income student is stigmatized, because if you do, people look at you and are like, “Oh, I’m so sorry, do you need me to pay for you? Do you need me to buy you this meal?” They start to pity low-income students, but no one wants to be pitied, and that’s not how they want to be treated.
I have a friend who lives with two wealthy students and his roommate, who, like him, is a low-income student. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of tension because he couldn’t help pay for the furniture. So then they just excluded him doing things in the suite and stopped inviting him to things. I haven’t experienced that, but there are a lot of stories like that here. It seems like here the response to finding out that someone comes from a low-income background is either pity or disdain and I don’t understand that. I also wish people talked about financial aid more candidly. People talk about it as though it’s a big taboo or flaw. I don’t understand why people stigmatize financial aid so much, and if we talked about it more, and if there were people who were more knowledgeable about it, that would help remove the stigma, and students would understand how to navigate campus better.
There are some areas on campus that are very homogenous, and are made up of one type of person, one socioeconomic group, or one ethnic background. There are some spaces that I shy away from: I don’t go there and don’t care to be there because I don’t feel comfortable there. Part of it is financial and socioeconomic. Spaces like that might not actively make you feel bad to your face, but it’s the elephant in the room.
I have a few friends from some of the clubs I’m in who will talk about this kind of stuff. It’s not just about the money, but also the whole system. Money plays a huge factor in creating that kind of exclusionary environment. Certain frats have reputations of taking only rich, international students, for example; my friend from home didn’t even want to rush a frat because of their reputation for excepting only wealthy people. He felt like he didn’t even have a chance to get in for that reason. I haven’t found a lot of groups on campus that discuss the detrimental effects of this sort of richer campus lifestyle. Especially if it’s a frat party, those spaces aren’t just white and rich, but also male and heteronormative. And that's not a place for me. Even when students in those spaces don’t actively insult me, when I enter them I feel like I don’t belong. I’m grateful to say that I haven’t had any direct instances when I felt disadvantaged or uncomfortable––I just know that there are certain spaces that are not for me, because of the creation of this white, wealthy culture that I don’t fit into. Getting rid of the student income contribution won’t completely change those spaces, but it might open up conversations that will educate the wealthy people who occupy them.
