Elite Colleges Make Low-Income Students Feel Unwelcome

I really feel this. This article felt almost like a "duh" moment to me, but I realize not everyone has the same experience as me.

I went to an "elite" college (Northwestern University- thought about hiding the name, but really this says more about them than it does about me). I could easily have gone hungry if the cards had played out a little differently. (Friends would sneak me food from the dining hall when I couldn't get enough meals to sustain me, which got me through the worst of it, so I never actually missed more than a meal here or there)

If there was a way to get free tickets to anything, as in the school in the article, I never heard about it. Like the students in this article, I didn't knew what office hours were for until later. Oh, and I was charged to apply for financial aid, because they required an application that cost $20 in addition to the FAFSA. That year I had to beg my aunt for $20 or I wouldn't have been able to apply for financial aid for the next year. Navigating the system to get financial aid was a battle every year.

I graduated a few years ago, make good money now, and honestly I don't think I'll ever donate money to NU after the experiences I had there. Sure, they let me in and gave me need-based-aid - but they sure didn't do anything else to help me succeed. Saying that elite colleges make low-income students "feel unwelcome" is an understatement.

A more accurate headline is "Elite Colleges don't eliminate every downside of being poor, despite giving the most generous gifts poor students have received from anyone in their entire lives except their immediate family."

Classism is America's dirty secret. What makes these colleges "elite?" Rich kids attend them because their rich parents attended them (or donated to them).