Shame and Injustice
There’s a largely well-founded association of financial freedom with privilege. I think we all—myself included, someone who doesn’t receive financial aid—assume that those not on financial aid are entitled and have received nothing but luxury in their lives. But what this view not only dehumanizes the exception amongst non-financial aid students but also further entangles perceptions of students on financial aid as hard-working kids who have been given a gift by the university and ought to put their “worldliness” to good use.
While my specific financial situation is one of privilege—I don’t have a student income contribution, although I pay for many other things in what people have called “an exceptional arrangement”—I have encountered many students against which my luxury pales. My own suitemate has a queen-sized bed (despite being provided with a perfectly wonderful twin one) and asked me, when told to take his turn in cleaning our bathroom, which one was the broom and which one the mop. My suitemate is a wonderful guy—super friendly and inspiring—but his privilege is the cause of negative associations with students not on financial aid.
Issues of class are of course fundamentally linked to race and ethnicity. When I spoke to some friends at La Casa about class, I told them I was not on financial aid. They looked at me shocked: “What? But aren’t you Puerto Rican?” The association of students of color with low socioeconomic status is both assumed and real, creating an added burden on Yale’s beleaguered minorities.
A simple solution for the problem of the student income contribution is either to eliminate it altogether or make it even across the board for all Yale students regardless of financial standing. All students should work the required hours and make the required income, whether it be what it is now or $0. My mother, despite having to make major sacrifices so that I can go to school, frequently thanks God that I do not have to experience the shame of serving pulled pork to my classmates as she did. And yet there’s no reason for anyone to feel that shame; no reason to perpetuate systems of injustice on campus; no reason to keep the student income contribution as is.
While my specific financial situation is one of privilege—I don’t have a student income contribution, although I pay for many other things in what people have called “an exceptional arrangement”—I have encountered many students against which my luxury pales. My own suitemate has a queen-sized bed (despite being provided with a perfectly wonderful twin one) and asked me, when told to take his turn in cleaning our bathroom, which one was the broom and which one the mop. My suitemate is a wonderful guy—super friendly and inspiring—but his privilege is the cause of negative associations with students not on financial aid.
Issues of class are of course fundamentally linked to race and ethnicity. When I spoke to some friends at La Casa about class, I told them I was not on financial aid. They looked at me shocked: “What? But aren’t you Puerto Rican?” The association of students of color with low socioeconomic status is both assumed and real, creating an added burden on Yale’s beleaguered minorities.
A simple solution for the problem of the student income contribution is either to eliminate it altogether or make it even across the board for all Yale students regardless of financial standing. All students should work the required hours and make the required income, whether it be what it is now or $0. My mother, despite having to make major sacrifices so that I can go to school, frequently thanks God that I do not have to experience the shame of serving pulled pork to my classmates as she did. And yet there’s no reason for anyone to feel that shame; no reason to perpetuate systems of injustice on campus; no reason to keep the student income contribution as is.
