I'm also a rust belt kid and, while I wouldn't say I grew up poor, we were decidedly middle class. I would have qualified for Harvard's free tuition program, t

I'm also a rust belt kid and, while I wouldn't say I grew up poor, we were decidedly middle class. I would have qualified for Harvard's free tuition program, to put things in perspective. I'm also in a PhD program and my experience here is slightly different than your own. Specifically, I'm probably the median in terms of economic backgrounds among the graduate students in my program. Yes, there are some students from upper middle class and wealthy families, but I know just as many grad students who were living on welfare before going to college. Heck, even out of the professors, more of them are sons of farmers and bakers than of bankers or doctors. I should include my own samples biases here. First, I'm at a large, state school, not a private institution. Sopooneo has already commented that that could make a difference. Also, the majority of my social group is in the physics department, so I'm not sure how well this extends outside the sciences.