“eeeewwww, poor people!”
Score one for the bad guys. I am seldom shocked anymore but even I was startled by this one. A recent story published at gothamist.com reports on a recent slew of phone calls from the New York
Phil Collins sang a lot about poor people in this album so it seemed appropriate
University (NYU) to low-income families whose kids had gained acceptance for college to NYU just to remind them how expensive it is to attend NYU. The story reports that officials at NYU, which will distribute $175 million in financial aid in the next school year, say the phone calls were simply intended to make sure families understood their often complex financial aid packages. This was also confirmed and strongly condemned by the NYU school newspaper.
From what I’ve gathered now, NYU calls these poor low-income families and tells them, “it’s expensive here” and at best makes sure that they understand how much of a debt burden they will be taking on. I can think of a few things that are not right (even for academia) with this picture. First of all, everyone did not get this phone call, just low-income families. It doesn’t take a genius to see why this would be offensive as the assumption seems to be that low-income families, perhaps by virtue of their low-income and socioeconomic class, are unable to even contemplate a number as big as $50,000 per year. Oooooo–that’s so much money, I can’t even begin to understand what it means! You know, this really does piss me off. I’ve always felt that education should be accessible to anyone who was willing to work for it. And as much as I used to bitch and moan about how much my university was giving me in financial aid and how much I had to borrow, the system did sort of work. Yes, I was able to afford going to an expensive college but was I able to eat steak for dinner every night? No. I ate at the dining hall everyday (where rumor has it the food was laced with baking soda to make the students feel full on less food but that’s another story) and I had to cut out a lot of frills. So what NYU appears to doing, in my opinion, is shear elitist intimidation and bullying. These kids got into NYU and they clearly had loan packages to go there but instead of being recruited, their lack of money is being thrown in their faces. As if these people didn’t know they come from a low-income family. Unbelieveable. As many have already pointed out these phone calls–while not directly pressuring these families–are just adding more pressure that these families must be feeling from their finances–a sentiment that has been echoed by some of the students whose families have received these phone calls from NYU.
But as disgusting as I find NYU’s actual behavior, I find it even worse in light of the fact that they could be helping instead! Rather than bullying low-income families and “reminding” them of how expensive it is for their child to go to NYU, they should be educating these families on the different ways of that education can be funded through grants and reasonable educational loans. The “ins” and “outs” of financial aid are complicated–no question–and in my experience not really accessible to anyone who doesn’t work in a financial aid office. As I am about to graduate from medical school, I now have to deal with all of those college loans I deferred for eight years. Painful–not just the amount I owe but also all of the rules, forms, deadlines, etc. I’ve been lucky that the financial aid office at our medical school has been really helpful in explaining things to me and hooking me up with the right people. But this experience has also taught me that when financial aid is explained in the right way, all of the options and possibilities can be much clearer. In the past, our financial aid office even alerted me when there were grants available that I was eligible for. Over the last few years, I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot of free money out there that most people don’t know about. Financial aid offices are gold mines. These people are plugged in. Talk to them–they can tell you about grants (free money) that you’ve never heard of. That is, when the university isn’t busy trying to scare you into not going there. I can’t say that I’ve talked personally to any of the kids or their low-income families that were contacted by NYU but in no story that I’ve read (including the responses from the NYU representatives) have I seen anything about the university also offering to provide guidance on how these families could afford to send their kids to NYU. This is just disgusting. I personally hope that I have misinterpreted what I have read or that I haven’t gotten a hold of the whole story but I’m skeptical that is the case. But such a bold-faced and apparent attempt to weed out kids from low income families is appalling.
NYU, help these families–don’t turn them away! Shame on any college or university that turns away students who have been accepted with financial aid packages through the lowest forms of intimidation aimed at those who need help the most.
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
dun dun dun. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/education/31college.html this is to say that there is much worse than what nyu is doing, because at least they accepted students with financial aid needs.
May 3rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm
I don’t know iar. I’d rather not get in at all than get in and be intimidated into not going. My suspicion is that the low-income students who ignore the phone calls and go to NYU anyway will be treated as second-class citizens when they deal with the administration, so they might as well not have gotten in. You know what I mean? It’s like getting into an expensive restaurant and getting treated like crap. Wouldn’t you rather go to Denny’s, get a big-ass Grandslam breakfast for dinner and at least have a waitress who calls you “hon”? Hells yeah you would. At least I would. And I’d get an extra side of sausage too.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:23 pm
you know, mentioning denny’s to someone who lived in the south and has a strong appreciation of the place, but now is stuck in manhattan with no denny’s in sight, is just mean. MEAN, i tell you.
while i think both situations are shitty for college students, i lean towards it’s-worse-not-to-get-college-admission-because-you/your family-is-poor than to actually get in and have a financial aid office employee try to deter you from going to their college. those people don’t do their jobs too well, they’re not going to deter prospective students very successfully either.
i think it’s difficult enough for students of a lower socioeconomic status to want & to get higher education as it is, and if they are going to be screened based on their parents’ incomes to gain admission to college then they might quickly become shit-out-of-luck. in general a college education in the US costs a lot, and i think that deters enough students from applying to pricey schools, and if we have the schools discriminate against students then we will have a continuously perpetuating cycle where the educated/well-off people and their offspring get a quality education and maintain their socioeconomic status, and those who do not have the financial means remain in that situation for generations. i realize that it’s only happened at a few schools so it doesn’t have too great of an impact, but if this financial discrimination by schools were to take place on a large scale it would revert our society to a situation similar to the middle ages where only the wealthy could afford books and to be educated.
if there is discrimination at the admissions level a lot of quality but poor students might end up at community college while a student not as intelligent but from a wealthier background ends up in a university-is that kosher? the GW Bush example of wealth and lack of intelligence comes to mind-we already have enough of that happening with the ivy’s and other private schools, don’t you think?
i also have to mention that there are a lot of private outside funds that students can find through their high schools offices or even by themselves on the internets. so an industrious student could ease their loan-load. a student discriminated against, can’t do much short of telling lies about their financial situation.
May 4th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
iar- first of all, we don’t have Denny’s around here either so i feel your pain. and i have to specifically pick vacation destinations where will be Denny’s.
moving on, why i disagree with your rationale is that everything you said “could” happen has already happened. go to any top-end university (more prevalent at the college level) and you’ll notice an unexpectedly large number of people who should be there. moreover, rejecting people based on a financial basis is measurable and regulate-able offense. however, when you let people in and then underhandedly dissuade them from going, it is a lot harder to quantify that because an equally possible reason for having only rich kids enroll–despite a good socioeconomic mix of accepted students–is because the tuition is high. it’s this kind of underhanded maneuvering, which cannot be measured or regulated, that is most dangerous.
finally, i think it is a completely valid possibility that students who go to NYU despite phone calls may be treated as second class citizens. i’ve seen it happen to people before who didn’t get phone calls and there’s no reason why it is not likely to happen to kids who do receive phone calls from institutions trying to convince them to go elsewhere. school is hard enough, who needs that kind of negative attention. and yes there are a lot of private outside funds but i had a very hard time finding many of the scholarships i know of now before my financial aid office told me about them or told me where to look. and believe it or not, i have been occasionally described as “industrious”.
however, mostly i am described as smelly–like right now, having just come home from the gym. time for a shower.