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Spending $300 on a Spanish textbook. Buying a laptop to keep up with classwork. Paying for plane tickets or bus rides to come home for break. Finding dress clothes for an on-campus interview. The college experience involves more than just paying room, board, and tuition. For most students, these costs are just as much a part of college life as complaining about dining hall food or pulling an all-nighter. But for me — and many low-income students around campus — the additional costs of college can feel like an unaffordable luxury.
Last year,
New York Times
published an article titled, “Some Colleges Have More Students from the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60,” in which Hamilton College was ranked 18th in the United States on the list of colleges with the highest wealth disparities. Even though higher-education across the country has been moving towards a more expansive financial aid system, the percentage of low-income students who enroll in college has dropped by 10 percent since 2008.
The big reason? Today’s college admissions process — including that of Hamilton — continue to put low-income, underprivileged students at a severe disadvantage. Hamilton is one of the more expensive private schools in the country, and class markers are everywhere — from the way students dress to the way they talk. But money is just one part of the problem. Students coming from an underprivileged background face an endless list of challenges when it comes to admission and college success. Lower income students often have to hold a part-time job outside of class, which leaves them little time or resources to prepare for the ACT or SAT testing. Wealthier students can also afford expensive test preparation programs, and some start training as early as middle school.
On top of good test scores, college admissions officials expect to see evidence of student involvement on campus — leadership positions, clubs, and sports outside of class. For students who work or care for family members outside of school, this requirement can prove difficult to fulfill. And even though the Common Application provides a place to put work experience, student applications may still seem lacking without the benefit of high achieving clubs like debate, MUN or school leadership.
Advanced Placement or other college-level classes can also elevate a student’s transcript. For students from lower-income communities, class sizes are too large for individualized attention and the range of available classes is limited. Recommendations come from teachers who might have up to 50 students in a single class, and counselors advise hundreds of students at a time.
With all of these barriers in place, “need blind” admissions becomes a double- edged sword. When colleges don’t take students’ socioeconomic disadvantages into account, lower-income students often struggle to compete with their wealthier peers in terms of grades, test scores, extracurriculars and teacher recommendations.
While Ivy Leagues and elite universities offer great financial aid programs for lower-income families, these barriers mean that low-income students are still underrepresented on these campuses. In many cases, only the highest achieving low-income students are admitted, leaving behind thousands of ambitious, intelligent students who lacked the resources to fulfill admissions requirements.
Furthermore, additional college costs mean that low-income students often face social isolation on campus. As a low-income student with a generous financial aid package, I still have to work five jobs just to afford my board costs, not to mention the extra travel costs and money that I have to send back to my parents. The effects of an empty wallet influence virtually every aspect of campus life. Whether it’s spending all my free time at work, staying on campus for breaks because I can’t pay the travel costs to go home, or eating alone in the dining hall when friends are out somewhere that I can’t afford — campus culture is oriented around money in a lot of subtle, alienating ways.
Underprivileged students are dropped into a culture where many of their peers have a direct line to prestigious internships and have the financial support of their parents for tuition, board, and additional costs. Poor students navigate the college experience in a different way — we have to learn how to cope with the disadvantages hanging over our heads. It is an immense privilege to be attending a private college with a generous financial aid program, and I can acknowledge that I’m still financially better off than many. But it’s no secret that institutions like Hamilton are designed to give parents the best education that money can buy.
There is something inherently damaging in the college admissions system beyond the glossy brochures and the promise of a need blind process. Despite the attempts to bring more low-income students on campus, the system as it stands right now is rooted in privilege, wealth, and power. These institutions are about giving rich students the tools to stay rich. When low-income students are excluded from higher education opportunities, they are excluded from the opportunities for social mobility and the chance to shape the future of America’s economic, social, and cultural institutions.
Colleges are designed for middle-to-upper-class individuals, which gives the keys to higher education and all its opportunities to those who are wealthy enough for it. While I commend Hamilton College for making the effort to reach out to lower-income communities, it’s vital that we turn a critical eye to the admissions process and the campus culture of wealth. These barriers are an example of how nurture — your upbringing, your parent’s wealth — can affect your future. Success isn’t born in a vacuum.
It isn’t enough to expand only financial aid policies. These inequalities exist at the foundation of the college admissions system, and they’re present in every aspect of day-to-day college life.
