Two Yales
I’m a white student who’s not on financial aid. My granddad’s career was in the part of the 20th century where if you were a lawyer, you could put away an incredible amount of money and the firm would match you. Because pensions were generous and because of the political and economic moment he was in, he was able to put money away for three grandkids to go fully to college. If it were just my parents, that wouldn’t be the case, but because of this situation, I’m not on financial aid. But I feel really strange and weird accepting textbook money and spending money from my family. I feel like I don’t want to be the entitled kid all of whose pocket change comes from asking a family that can provide pocket change for pocket change when so many people can’t do that, so I take student jobs. I take ones where they need a million people so I’m not taking one from someone who really needs it to fulfill their student income contribution. I work for the math department, and you need to have fulfilled certain math classes, and they don’t have enough people who have taken the classes, so it’s not like I’m taking a popular job from someone who needs it. Because I can take these jobs that are not high-demand, I can choose my own schedule, and maybe one week I won’t have a lot of hours. My other job is being a house manager, where you sit in on certain plays each week and make sure they’re up to fire code and so forth, but it’s competitive with other house managers to get hours. There’s a spreadsheet in the office and you fill in your name in next to the shift you want. I’m able to do about a shift a week of about three hours, which isn’t nearly enough to fulfill the student income contribution… if I want to buy makeup one week and not buy makeup another week, I can tailor my shifts according to that, and it’s good for that. It’s only good for trivial things. If someone were trying to use this particular job to meet their student income contribution, one play per week wouldn’t be nearly enough, so as a result, in case people on the house manager roster ARE trying to to meet their student income contribution, I try not to take up a lot of shifts per week.
I use my job for spending money, and it’s bizarre to me how unusual that is. It seems to me that everyone who has a job needs a job, and everyone who doesn’t need a job to meet their student income contribution doesn’t have one. That seems like a really meaningful and weird duality that people don’t really talk about. I know one person who is candid about having an allowance from her family, but I feel a lot of weird guilt and shame about that for myself. It’s sort of a complicated negotiation with myself about what’s the most ethical way to have a job on campus. Moreover, I always think, what if someone were trying to use this house manager job to fulfill their student income contribution? They’d need to go to about four plays a week, which there aren’t! Every week there aren’t four plays. There are big weeks and small weeks. And also that’s a lot of time!
And it seems like the most prestigious extracurricular positions on this campus, and even negotiating when you’re going to have interviews for those scary Hunger-Games-y summer internships… you’re sort of at the mercy of these larger organizations, and the main thing that they want from you is your time. It’s one thing if it’s getting ahead on your schoolwork – I can imagine someone being able to do really well with time management, and being able to handle a really difficult course load while working a lot of hours, but all the other stuff, the stuff that makes Yale a really useful, networking-type opportunity, seems to be totally impacted by this. You couldn’t be the Editor-in-Chief of the YDN and have a meaningful student job. You couldn’t be the president of the Yale Political Union and have a meaningful student job… you couldn’t be the Chair of any of the parties in the YPU and have a meaningful student job. You couldn’t be the head of a club sport – that’s an incredibly time-consuming position. The list goes on and on. It really does seem like there are two Yales. And I know people who take these demanding positions, so instead of taking jobs to make their student income contributions, they take out loans, which seems disingenuous given the emphasis on “you don’t need to take out loans!” that every college with a generous financial aid policy puts on its website. There was that kid who got into all of the Ivy League schools and he picked the University of Alabama Honors Program because he was in-state and it made more financial sense. Maybe that makes sense in some people’s ethical frameworks, but it’s not okay because Yale explicitly says things like, “oh, no one should ever have to not choose Yale for financial reasons”… It seems sort of bizarre. And this rule where you can’t apply scholarship money from outside of Yale to reduce any tuition or fee burdens besides of your SIC seems sort of crazy… Yale has made an estimate of what your parents can pay based on what you put in the FAFSA, but if your parents can’t pay it and you need to raise more money for tuition yourself, that’s for them to say, not for Yale to say. So of course you should be able to make up that shortfall with outside scholarships if you do the legwork for those yourself. And that seems like a no-brainer, like, “Dear Yale Corporation, if you’re reading this website, changing that rule doesn’t even take money out of your particular pocket.” This is really astonishing.
The circus, in particular, as an extracurricular is generally socioeconomically charged, because in order to be in the circus club – the Yale Undergraduate Aerial and Circus Arts Collective –Yale, for safety reasons, makes you take a test before you can use the aerial equipment that Yale has so generously bought for us through grants we apply for and the arts discretionary fund and a variety of other things, which is financially easy for us. But in order to have enough experience to pass this test, you would have to have taken classes. In order to have taken classes growing up… there aren’t that many circuses in the US that are for youth that offer meaningful scholarships unless, again, you already have experience. It’s like getting a job, where you need to have experience to get a job but you need the job to get experience: you need to have taken classes to get to the level to where there will be a scholarship or free training, but you need to pay money to take classes to get to that level. Almost every circus person that I know has had parental money for classes. At Yale it’s not an incredibly time-consuming venture, so the time-crunch thing doesn’t come into play as much with circus. But we’re constantly trying to accept new members, and we have to select for people who already have circus experience. There is a circus studio near Pepe’s Pizza where you can take classes, which are sort of reasonably priced if you have spending money rather than having all your wages go to your SIC, but then you have to get yourself there. In the day you can walk, but probably at night you want to take a Zipcar or the bus or something, and that would sort of add up and take a lot of time. Once you’re in the circus club, it’s great – unlike any other trapeze I’ve had access to, I don’t have to pay each time I use it. But the cost of entry is actually incredibly high. Social circuses that run as nonprofits and try to subsidize lower-income youth – most circuses aren’t these – do pretty impossible, cool work in trying to get lower-income folks to do circus, because it’s a really expensive enterprise. You need insurance to cover any potential accidents, you need equipment, you need someone who’s trained to use the equipment, you need someone to get kids there, so it self-selects for kids whose parents can get them there and not for highest-need kids… if you get talented enough to earn money at it or to teach, circus is a low-cost enterprise, but costs of entry are really high, like for many of the arts, and it’s sad. It reminds me of when, in high school, the theater kids wouldn’t learn to drive because theater was so time-consuming. But what if you needed to learn how to drive because your parents couldn’t drive you, or you needed to drive your siblings? Here, I can think of two people I know who do theater, one who’s on financial aid and one who isn’t, and the one who is just doesn’t have any free time. In order for her to get her homework done and do the required number of shifts at her job and do theater, she can’t have any free time.
It does seem like the folks here at the higher socioeconomic level don’t think about restrictions on social life until someone makes them think about it. I try to be someone who thinks about this; I guess my method of trying to make sure I don’t put anyone in a weird spot financially is trying not to ask people to go out to dinner a whole lot. Which is about making sure people don’t feel weird, but also because I’m on the meal plan and don’t want to spend money on food. My family is paying 21 meals a week and it feels wasteful, given that some people can’t really go out anyway. It’s not about whether I like what they’re serving in the dining hall. Growing up in the suburbs of Massachusetts did make me wary of complaints that come exclusively from having an excess of material goods in your life, which leads you to complain when that’s slightly off. But I’m in a really fortunate spot, so I don’t have to think about these things except as an intellectual and ethical exercise in guilt and whining and all of these sort of mild, white-person affluent emotions.
If there were no student income contribution, I’m wondering how many of these jobs would still exist, like how many are kind of manufactured so that Yale can say that it has enough jobs for students to make their student income contribution. I think both of my jobs would still exist, but I guess then the people who need to take on a million shifts now would get to operate more like I get to operate, would get to take a light work week if they have a heavy homework week and vice versa! It seems like some students shouldn’t have to have horrible weeks more of the time than everyone else just because their families weren’t able to put away as much money as my family was able to put away. What’s that thing people say, “having skin in the game”? It’s gross to think that poor people should have skin in the game and that rich people don’t need to have skin in the game for some sort of character reason! That’s a crazy ethos for Yale to uphold, given all the other stuff it purports to uphold.
I use my job for spending money, and it’s bizarre to me how unusual that is. It seems to me that everyone who has a job needs a job, and everyone who doesn’t need a job to meet their student income contribution doesn’t have one. That seems like a really meaningful and weird duality that people don’t really talk about. I know one person who is candid about having an allowance from her family, but I feel a lot of weird guilt and shame about that for myself. It’s sort of a complicated negotiation with myself about what’s the most ethical way to have a job on campus. Moreover, I always think, what if someone were trying to use this house manager job to fulfill their student income contribution? They’d need to go to about four plays a week, which there aren’t! Every week there aren’t four plays. There are big weeks and small weeks. And also that’s a lot of time!
And it seems like the most prestigious extracurricular positions on this campus, and even negotiating when you’re going to have interviews for those scary Hunger-Games-y summer internships… you’re sort of at the mercy of these larger organizations, and the main thing that they want from you is your time. It’s one thing if it’s getting ahead on your schoolwork – I can imagine someone being able to do really well with time management, and being able to handle a really difficult course load while working a lot of hours, but all the other stuff, the stuff that makes Yale a really useful, networking-type opportunity, seems to be totally impacted by this. You couldn’t be the Editor-in-Chief of the YDN and have a meaningful student job. You couldn’t be the president of the Yale Political Union and have a meaningful student job… you couldn’t be the Chair of any of the parties in the YPU and have a meaningful student job. You couldn’t be the head of a club sport – that’s an incredibly time-consuming position. The list goes on and on. It really does seem like there are two Yales. And I know people who take these demanding positions, so instead of taking jobs to make their student income contributions, they take out loans, which seems disingenuous given the emphasis on “you don’t need to take out loans!” that every college with a generous financial aid policy puts on its website. There was that kid who got into all of the Ivy League schools and he picked the University of Alabama Honors Program because he was in-state and it made more financial sense. Maybe that makes sense in some people’s ethical frameworks, but it’s not okay because Yale explicitly says things like, “oh, no one should ever have to not choose Yale for financial reasons”… It seems sort of bizarre. And this rule where you can’t apply scholarship money from outside of Yale to reduce any tuition or fee burdens besides of your SIC seems sort of crazy… Yale has made an estimate of what your parents can pay based on what you put in the FAFSA, but if your parents can’t pay it and you need to raise more money for tuition yourself, that’s for them to say, not for Yale to say. So of course you should be able to make up that shortfall with outside scholarships if you do the legwork for those yourself. And that seems like a no-brainer, like, “Dear Yale Corporation, if you’re reading this website, changing that rule doesn’t even take money out of your particular pocket.” This is really astonishing.
The circus, in particular, as an extracurricular is generally socioeconomically charged, because in order to be in the circus club – the Yale Undergraduate Aerial and Circus Arts Collective –Yale, for safety reasons, makes you take a test before you can use the aerial equipment that Yale has so generously bought for us through grants we apply for and the arts discretionary fund and a variety of other things, which is financially easy for us. But in order to have enough experience to pass this test, you would have to have taken classes. In order to have taken classes growing up… there aren’t that many circuses in the US that are for youth that offer meaningful scholarships unless, again, you already have experience. It’s like getting a job, where you need to have experience to get a job but you need the job to get experience: you need to have taken classes to get to the level to where there will be a scholarship or free training, but you need to pay money to take classes to get to that level. Almost every circus person that I know has had parental money for classes. At Yale it’s not an incredibly time-consuming venture, so the time-crunch thing doesn’t come into play as much with circus. But we’re constantly trying to accept new members, and we have to select for people who already have circus experience. There is a circus studio near Pepe’s Pizza where you can take classes, which are sort of reasonably priced if you have spending money rather than having all your wages go to your SIC, but then you have to get yourself there. In the day you can walk, but probably at night you want to take a Zipcar or the bus or something, and that would sort of add up and take a lot of time. Once you’re in the circus club, it’s great – unlike any other trapeze I’ve had access to, I don’t have to pay each time I use it. But the cost of entry is actually incredibly high. Social circuses that run as nonprofits and try to subsidize lower-income youth – most circuses aren’t these – do pretty impossible, cool work in trying to get lower-income folks to do circus, because it’s a really expensive enterprise. You need insurance to cover any potential accidents, you need equipment, you need someone who’s trained to use the equipment, you need someone to get kids there, so it self-selects for kids whose parents can get them there and not for highest-need kids… if you get talented enough to earn money at it or to teach, circus is a low-cost enterprise, but costs of entry are really high, like for many of the arts, and it’s sad. It reminds me of when, in high school, the theater kids wouldn’t learn to drive because theater was so time-consuming. But what if you needed to learn how to drive because your parents couldn’t drive you, or you needed to drive your siblings? Here, I can think of two people I know who do theater, one who’s on financial aid and one who isn’t, and the one who is just doesn’t have any free time. In order for her to get her homework done and do the required number of shifts at her job and do theater, she can’t have any free time.
It does seem like the folks here at the higher socioeconomic level don’t think about restrictions on social life until someone makes them think about it. I try to be someone who thinks about this; I guess my method of trying to make sure I don’t put anyone in a weird spot financially is trying not to ask people to go out to dinner a whole lot. Which is about making sure people don’t feel weird, but also because I’m on the meal plan and don’t want to spend money on food. My family is paying 21 meals a week and it feels wasteful, given that some people can’t really go out anyway. It’s not about whether I like what they’re serving in the dining hall. Growing up in the suburbs of Massachusetts did make me wary of complaints that come exclusively from having an excess of material goods in your life, which leads you to complain when that’s slightly off. But I’m in a really fortunate spot, so I don’t have to think about these things except as an intellectual and ethical exercise in guilt and whining and all of these sort of mild, white-person affluent emotions.
If there were no student income contribution, I’m wondering how many of these jobs would still exist, like how many are kind of manufactured so that Yale can say that it has enough jobs for students to make their student income contribution. I think both of my jobs would still exist, but I guess then the people who need to take on a million shifts now would get to operate more like I get to operate, would get to take a light work week if they have a heavy homework week and vice versa! It seems like some students shouldn’t have to have horrible weeks more of the time than everyone else just because their families weren’t able to put away as much money as my family was able to put away. What’s that thing people say, “having skin in the game”? It’s gross to think that poor people should have skin in the game and that rich people don’t need to have skin in the game for some sort of character reason! That’s a crazy ethos for Yale to uphold, given all the other stuff it purports to uphold.
