7 ms·

It's because they are in an unstable situation and that means their struggle has to be greater than those who are privileged. The ones who succeed, are usually

by asadm 11y ago

It's because they are in an unstable situation and that means their struggle has to be greater than those who are privileged. The ones who succeed, are usually more tolerant to stress and that is a major reason they complete their college.

coldtea 11y ago
>The ones who succeed, are usually more tolerant to stress and that is a major reason they complete their college. They are usually also the lighter cases (less unstable situations), with a least some parental support, and also the ones who got a few more lucky breaks. In the end, though, they ascribe it all to their "hard work" and ignore those things -- condemning those less fortunate. Mostly like privileged stable upper middle class students do.
- ploxiln 11y ago
  yes, yes, we know, no one is responsible for anything that they do ...
  - meat_fist 11y ago
    No, but simply "working hard" guarantees nothing.
    - pdex 11y ago
      Yes, one also needs to be capable of making intelligent decisions for the future, majoring in Theater is not one of them (just an example).
      - coldtea 11y ago
        Is it that hard to understand that a middle/upper middle class kid with two educated supporting parents, encouragement since it was small, a college fund, etc has it EASIER than a poor kid from the projects? And that this holds regardless of "hard work" and "intelligent decisions for the future"? E.g. even if both make the exact same good decisions, the poor kid has to work harder to overcome what it lacked in encouragement, financial ease to just study, parental support, the need to get a job to pay the rent even while at college, etc.
        pdex 11y ago
        I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. I got much less than the minorities because while being crap-poor from a single mother environment in the ghetto, I am not from what's considered an ethic minority. I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Seen it, lived it, been there, done that. Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k. While my family stressed the importance of education while growing up and the ghetto provided a great example of what I didn't want for my life, I didn't have familial support in steering me towards intelligent decisions- in fact I had numerous family members actively trying to sabotage my endeavors to go to college because they wanted me to start a family. I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me.
        meat_fist 11y ago
        > I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. Are you unable to recognize that your experiences may not be in line with everyone else's? > I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Again, you're an edge case. "I had it rough so clearly there isn't an issue with racial minorities getting through college." This is a really close-minded thought process. > Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k. My first thought would be "Why this guy complaining about how hard he has it and then going to an expensive, over priced school?" > I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me. Nobody is saying you didn't work hard or make good choices. Nobody is saying ethnic minorities can avoid working hard or making good choices. The point is that simply working hard and making good choices is not enough (hence the whole point of this article).
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Well, if I have person A play the console game of "Life" in easy mode and person B in hard mode, they're both "responsible" for what they do. But they're also playing under quite different chances and difficulty levels, and facing much different odds. Heck, they're really playing a different game, period. What's hard to understand about a kid from a well off middle class family with 2 educated and working parents who put money aside for their kid's studies has it much easier than some poor kid with one parent with unstable job and medical bills? http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      First off: great cartoon; thanks for the link to it. That said, that very real situation is why my wife and I took care to find each other, prioritizing a family and educational history alongside other "desires", why we work hard to provide a loving, stable, and nurturing environment, and why we're putting aside money in 529s for our kids. I don't know what the outcome will be, but we are making our own investments and current sacrifices to help our kids achieve whatever seems best for them. That not every child worldwide has that same beginning is perhaps unfair, but it won't cause me to do less for my family in the interest of fairness.
- MajorLOL 11y ago
  >In the end, though, they ascribe it all to their "hard work" and ignore those things -- condemning those less fortunate. Mostly like privileged stable upper middle class students do. What a caustic statement! Blinded by this much vitriol you are blindly ascribing your opinion to whatever aspect of the issue you feel. For every "privileged" student, there are "less fortunate" who get a tax break, a student discount, a grant or whatever. The world is a bit more dynamic than you paint it to be.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >What a caustic statement! Blinded by this much vitriol you are blindly ascribing your opinion to whatever aspect of the issue you feel. "Caustic", "vitriol", "blinded", etc. There's nothing complicated about what I wrote. Some people get to play life in easy mode, others don't. To give an easy example, some kids in the 40s, say, were born into post-slavery poverty, racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws for example. Would you say they should be just as likely to go to college and succeed as some silver-spoon fed upper middle class kid, and if they didn't it's their fault? While "de jure" segregation doesn't hold anymore, it's not that much better for million of young kids in the projects even today. >For every "privileged" student, there are "less fortunate" who get a tax break, a student discount, a grant or whatever. The world is a bit more dynamic than you paint it to be. All these things (tax breaks, student discounts, grants) don't substitute having money, a stable family to support you, the encouragement you need early on as a child, and a good school and neighborhood in your youth. Privileged students have all these by default (their families are simply educated, white, well-off, etc), the less fortunate students only get a chance at this if they manage to be able to go to college in the first place, which means they have already defeated the odds.
- swiley 11y ago
  All of those are important though. I've watched affluent kids drop out of school due to a lack of hard work.
  - pdex 11y ago
    I've also seen a lot of rich kids from college turn into poverty-stricken losers; character and work ethic have a lot to do with how well a student does regardless of their family's resources.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Sure, the key is not what individuals do, but statistics. After all affluent kids have also downright bought degrees and college admission, by paying teachers, having their parents give donations to the school, etc.

by asadm 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago

>The ones who succeed, are usually more tolerant to stress and that is a major reason they complete their college. They are usually also the lighter cases (less unstable situations), with a least some parental support, and also the ones who got a few more lucky breaks. In the end, though, they ascribe it all to their "hard work" and ignore those things -- condemning those less fortunate. Mostly like privileged stable upper middle class students do.

ploxiln 11y ago
yes, yes, we know, no one is responsible for anything that they do ...
- meat_fist 11y ago
  No, but simply "working hard" guarantees nothing.
  - pdex 11y ago
    Yes, one also needs to be capable of making intelligent decisions for the future, majoring in Theater is not one of them (just an example).
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Is it that hard to understand that a middle/upper middle class kid with two educated supporting parents, encouragement since it was small, a college fund, etc has it EASIER than a poor kid from the projects? And that this holds regardless of "hard work" and "intelligent decisions for the future"? E.g. even if both make the exact same good decisions, the poor kid has to work harder to overcome what it lacked in encouragement, financial ease to just study, parental support, the need to get a job to pay the rent even while at college, etc.
      - pdex 11y ago
        I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. I got much less than the minorities because while being crap-poor from a single mother environment in the ghetto, I am not from what's considered an ethic minority. I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Seen it, lived it, been there, done that. Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k. While my family stressed the importance of education while growing up and the ghetto provided a great example of what I didn't want for my life, I didn't have familial support in steering me towards intelligent decisions- in fact I had numerous family members actively trying to sabotage my endeavors to go to college because they wanted me to start a family. I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me.
        meat_fist 11y ago
        > I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. Are you unable to recognize that your experiences may not be in line with everyone else's? > I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Again, you're an edge case. "I had it rough so clearly there isn't an issue with racial minorities getting through college." This is a really close-minded thought process. > Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k. My first thought would be "Why this guy complaining about how hard he has it and then going to an expensive, over priced school?" > I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me. Nobody is saying you didn't work hard or make good choices. Nobody is saying ethnic minorities can avoid working hard or making good choices. The point is that simply working hard and making good choices is not enough (hence the whole point of this article).
- coldtea 11y ago
  Well, if I have person A play the console game of "Life" in easy mode and person B in hard mode, they're both "responsible" for what they do. But they're also playing under quite different chances and difficulty levels, and facing much different odds. Heck, they're really playing a different game, period. What's hard to understand about a kid from a well off middle class family with 2 educated and working parents who put money aside for their kid's studies has it much easier than some poor kid with one parent with unstable job and medical bills? http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    First off: great cartoon; thanks for the link to it. That said, that very real situation is why my wife and I took care to find each other, prioritizing a family and educational history alongside other "desires", why we work hard to provide a loving, stable, and nurturing environment, and why we're putting aside money in 529s for our kids. I don't know what the outcome will be, but we are making our own investments and current sacrifices to help our kids achieve whatever seems best for them. That not every child worldwide has that same beginning is perhaps unfair, but it won't cause me to do less for my family in the interest of fairness.
MajorLOL 11y ago
>In the end, though, they ascribe it all to their "hard work" and ignore those things -- condemning those less fortunate. Mostly like privileged stable upper middle class students do. What a caustic statement! Blinded by this much vitriol you are blindly ascribing your opinion to whatever aspect of the issue you feel. For every "privileged" student, there are "less fortunate" who get a tax break, a student discount, a grant or whatever. The world is a bit more dynamic than you paint it to be.
- coldtea 11y ago
  >What a caustic statement! Blinded by this much vitriol you are blindly ascribing your opinion to whatever aspect of the issue you feel. "Caustic", "vitriol", "blinded", etc. There's nothing complicated about what I wrote. Some people get to play life in easy mode, others don't. To give an easy example, some kids in the 40s, say, were born into post-slavery poverty, racism, segregation and Jim Crow laws for example. Would you say they should be just as likely to go to college and succeed as some silver-spoon fed upper middle class kid, and if they didn't it's their fault? While "de jure" segregation doesn't hold anymore, it's not that much better for million of young kids in the projects even today. >For every "privileged" student, there are "less fortunate" who get a tax break, a student discount, a grant or whatever. The world is a bit more dynamic than you paint it to be. All these things (tax breaks, student discounts, grants) don't substitute having money, a stable family to support you, the encouragement you need early on as a child, and a good school and neighborhood in your youth. Privileged students have all these by default (their families are simply educated, white, well-off, etc), the less fortunate students only get a chance at this if they manage to be able to go to college in the first place, which means they have already defeated the odds.
swiley 11y ago
All of those are important though. I've watched affluent kids drop out of school due to a lack of hard work.
- pdex 11y ago
  I've also seen a lot of rich kids from college turn into poverty-stricken losers; character and work ethic have a lot to do with how well a student does regardless of their family's resources.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Sure, the key is not what individuals do, but statistics. After all affluent kids have also downright bought degrees and college admission, by paying teachers, having their parents give donations to the school, etc.