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Probably the best point made in this article is that universities aim for "surface" diversity: they take the easy route of pretending that picking enough stude

by JPKab 14y ago

Probably the best point made in this article is that universities aim for "surface" diversity: they take the easy route of pretending that picking enough students of enough different racial backgrounds is actually making their school diverse. Its not. You end up with a bunch of kids from the same upper middle class suburbs. They might not all have the same skin color, but they will have the same accent, culture, and their version of a summer job in high school was at a shopping mall. I felt like an alien at school. Rural communities have a much lower cost of living, but also a much lower income. A rural kid who makes it to a university will almost certainly have to work an almost full-time job just to cover their living expenses, books, tuition, rent...etc. This divide was apparent to me as a student at Virginia Tech. 80% of VT's students come from the wealth DC suburbs. Yet wherever I worked when I was a student, the vast majority of my coworkers were from rural parts of the state. The "NoVa" kids in general didn't have to get jobs at all due to their parent's earning power. For them, rent was a joke. For rural kids, rent for a room is half what their parent's pay on mortgage or rent. Take this single piece of difference, and then extrapolate it to every other aspect of culture.

nayefc 14y ago
I'm about to graduate from Virginia Tech. You're absolutely right. Also, I'm an international student; 7 others applied to Tech from my high school. All got accepted. Virginia Tech tries really hard to get international students and it used to pretty much accept just about any international student (as opposed to the close by University of Virginia which gets most international applications and thus picks the highest two performers out of each school). I'm starting to see more and more internationals this year. When I first came, there was barely any. I thought it's really unfair that we got automatic acceptances just to look more diverse. Well, you might have guessed it: as a result it attracted the wrong crowd.
- ams6110 14y ago
  For many state schools, international students are a huge source of revenue. They mostly pay full freight.
  - nayefc 14y ago
    Yep, and then the US government makes it almost impossible for us to find jobs here.
    - jonemo 14y ago
      Would you mind elaborating on this? What's wrong with OPT?
      - nayefc 14y ago
        Nothing. Just applied to mine in fact. But: 1- H1-B Is not guaranteed. It's a lottery (literally). and 2- You have 60 days after graduation on OPT to find a job. For many that I know (particularly not in the tech field), they are really searching for a job but can't find one at all. Even American citizens can't find a job that easily. The tech field is an exception. I talked to 35-40 startups & companies from AngelList and other websites in a 4 months period. Ended up with 4 offers.
        jonemo 14y ago
        I might be mistaken, but afaik H1-B is not a lottery, it's just simply capped which means you have to apply for it during the one week of the year when they are available (note: that's this week) [1]. And then it's not guaranteed but more or less certain as long as you meet the eligibility requirements. As for OPT: Aren't you allowed to work self-employed during that time [2,3]? So as long as you give yourself a job, you are fine? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Congressional_yearly_numerical_cap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Congressional_yearly... [2] http://blog.messersmithlaw.com/?p=720 http://blog.messersmithlaw.com/?p=720 [3] http://e3visa.info/tag/opt-self-employed/ http://e3visa.info/tag/opt-self-employed/
        nayefc 14y ago
        H1-B is a lottery. It is not guaranteed at all. There is a set number of visas issued each year. Google "H1-B lottery". Check out the latest Bloomberg article on it. Last year, on the fifth day when they received a specific number of applications, they closed of any new applications and did a lottery on who will get the visas. I'm graduating in May - I cannot self employ myself :). I already accepted a job offer with a startup, and they will be applying for H1-B for me in two consecutive years. If I don't get it, I'll have to leave. Otherwise, I get H1-B for a max of 5 or 6 years I think
notahacker 14y ago
Going beyond "surface diversity" makes no economic sense for a profit-making institution. You need some kids from "tough backgrounds" and ethnic minorities to convince your sponsors that their financial support is breaking down barriers, but you wouldn't want to spend money traipsing across the country mopping up all the "rough diamonds" to replace the regular upper-middle-class kids that don't need scholarships and are probably more likely to complete the course and leave a lavish endowment afterwards.
- spacemanaki 14y ago
  Aren't all the ivy league schools (and most if not all prestigious universities) non-profits? I assume they have a bit more to their mission than just investing in alumns who will generate returns in the form of endowments.
  - fennecfoxen 14y ago
    Just because it's a non-profit doesn't mean the institution isn't out for all the money it can get its hands on. It means that there aren't owners who are able to get the profits distributed to them in some form. But having more money rolling in means a lot to the careers of college leadership, even if they don't own the university - they can expect more prestige and power, distributing travel grants to faculty in the underwater basket-weaving department and whatnot... and generally buffing their resumé in case any other interesting college wants to hire them away.
  - bsenftner 14y ago
    Sorry, but "non-profit" does not mean altruistic. It's an exploited tax dodge a huge proportion of the time. Just look at the huge salaries in any successful non-profit, and you know they are not what they position themselves as.
    - binxbolling 14y ago
      This is not even slightly accurate and I hope most people can see your post as the trolling that it is.
Evbn 14y ago
Ivy league schools have need-blind admission and incredibly generous aid packages: they are free for low income students, so your comment is off topic for this post.
- loganfrederick 14y ago
  His post does not cover the whole story, but it is certainly on topic. Where you're from and income level of your parents doesn't just affect your college experience once you're in college, but also earlier in the process. I'll provide my anecdote: I grew up in a decent suburb with a decent public school system. However, my high school never produced any Ivy League college students and the counselors and teachers there never presented it as an option. Most kids were only vaguely aware of what the Ivy League even was. It was even a running joke in my year about one student who did apply ("Oh, so and so thinks he's going to go to "Harvard"). Meanwhile, the neighboring school districts, which were slightly more upper-middle class, routinely produced dozens of Ivy League-bound seniors yearly. The main differences between my district and the neighboring ones was a 10 minute drive and a half century long history of old money in the other neighborhoods. The point is: Where you are from and your surroundings can greatly impact your knowledge and access to higher levels of education.
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    I wonder if these need based aid package recipients tend to be from (1) lower income neighborhoods or (2) are from lower income families who strained financially in order to live in a higher income neighborhood so that their kids could go to the better schools.
    - mjmahone17 14y ago
      Truth be told, it's probably a mix. My family was a high-ish income family for my high school (which seemed to have a range of income levels), but I'm still on financial aid. It actually seems most students on financial aid at Ivy Leagues aren't from the bottom-fifth of the income bracket, but more the third-to-fourth fifths. And some in the bottom of the top fifth.
davmre 14y ago
No offense, but your comment is a symptom of the very problem the article is highlighting. You say: "A rural kid who makes it to a university will almost certainly have to work an almost full-time job just to cover their living expenses, books, tuition, rent...etc." The point of the article is that this is not true and almost no one knows it! If you go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc -- basically any of the Ivy League, top LACs, or a few other elite schools -- and your family makes under, say, $60k/year, your tuition/room/board/books will be absolutely free. All covered by the school. No crippling student loans, no expectation of you working a job while in school (except maybe 10hrs/wk of cushy work-study for spending money). Even if your family is a bit wealthier, it's still the case that for most middle-class families the cost of an Ivy League education works out to less than the cost of the local state school. Very few families know this. Is there culture shock? Sure, of course. That's part of the point -- for both the poor rural kids and the rich urban kids, and everyone in between. But at schools with the resources to do diversity right (which, sorry to hear, doesn't sound like it includes Virginia Tech), the shock is only cultural, not financial, so the full college experience really is accessible to students from any background.
- rckrd 14y ago
  After my freshman year at my state university, I transferred to an Ivy League school. My financial aid now covers more than tuition (housing/dining plan/etc). I owe more money for my freshman year at a state university than my 3 remaining years combined at an Ivy League school.
- andrewchoi 14y ago
  I know anecdotes != data, but I and a bunch of my friends at our Ivy League university applied through the QuestBridge program[0] and for the most part, davmre's comment is completely on point. I work more because I want to have more web dev on my resume before hitting the real world and also because I like being able to pay for some niceties that my mother wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, not because I need to to stay in school. [0] http://questbridge.org/ http://questbridge.org/
- scarmig 14y ago
  This is totally true: I ended up going to one of those top tier universities just because the economics worked out much better than virtually every other opportunity I had. Depending on how you account for things, actually ended up making a profit without working either a full or a part time job. The culture shock issue was huge, though: half the people in my freshman dorm read the New Yorker (or, more accurately, subscribed to it and prominently displayed it as an affectation), while I hadn't even heard of it. Learning how to ape upper class cultural cues was probably the most valuable thing I got out of college.
niels_olson 14y ago
Holy crap. I went to high school in Kansas and undergrad at the Naval Academy. I just realized where and what "NoVa" is. I thought all those kids just had a year of community college before going to Canoe U. (There is a NoVa CC, but I'm pretty sure now that was not the usual context!)

by JPKab 14y ago

nayefc 14y ago

I'm about to graduate from Virginia Tech. You're absolutely right. Also, I'm an international student; 7 others applied to Tech from my high school. All got accepted. Virginia Tech tries really hard to get international students and it used to pretty much accept just about any international student (as opposed to the close by University of Virginia which gets most international applications and thus picks the highest two performers out of each school). I'm starting to see more and more internationals this year. When I first came, there was barely any. I thought it's really unfair that we got automatic acceptances just to look more diverse. Well, you might have guessed it: as a result it attracted the wrong crowd.

ams6110 14y ago
For many state schools, international students are a huge source of revenue. They mostly pay full freight.
- nayefc 14y ago
  Yep, and then the US government makes it almost impossible for us to find jobs here.
  - jonemo 14y ago
    Would you mind elaborating on this? What's wrong with OPT?
    - nayefc 14y ago
      Nothing. Just applied to mine in fact. But: 1- H1-B Is not guaranteed. It's a lottery (literally). and 2- You have 60 days after graduation on OPT to find a job. For many that I know (particularly not in the tech field), they are really searching for a job but can't find one at all. Even American citizens can't find a job that easily. The tech field is an exception. I talked to 35-40 startups & companies from AngelList and other websites in a 4 months period. Ended up with 4 offers.
      - jonemo 14y ago
        I might be mistaken, but afaik H1-B is not a lottery, it's just simply capped which means you have to apply for it during the one week of the year when they are available (note: that's this week) [1]. And then it's not guaranteed but more or less certain as long as you meet the eligibility requirements. As for OPT: Aren't you allowed to work self-employed during that time [2,3]? So as long as you give yourself a job, you are fine? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Congressional_yearly_numerical_cap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa#Congressional_yearly... [2] http://blog.messersmithlaw.com/?p=720 http://blog.messersmithlaw.com/?p=720 [3] http://e3visa.info/tag/opt-self-employed/ http://e3visa.info/tag/opt-self-employed/
        nayefc 14y ago
        H1-B is a lottery. It is not guaranteed at all. There is a set number of visas issued each year. Google "H1-B lottery". Check out the latest Bloomberg article on it. Last year, on the fifth day when they received a specific number of applications, they closed of any new applications and did a lottery on who will get the visas. I'm graduating in May - I cannot self employ myself :). I already accepted a job offer with a startup, and they will be applying for H1-B for me in two consecutive years. If I don't get it, I'll have to leave. Otherwise, I get H1-B for a max of 5 or 6 years I think

notahacker 14y ago

Going beyond "surface diversity" makes no economic sense for a profit-making institution. You need some kids from "tough backgrounds" and ethnic minorities to convince your sponsors that their financial support is breaking down barriers, but you wouldn't want to spend money traipsing across the country mopping up all the "rough diamonds" to replace the regular upper-middle-class kids that don't need scholarships and are probably more likely to complete the course and leave a lavish endowment afterwards.

spacemanaki 14y ago
Aren't all the ivy league schools (and most if not all prestigious universities) non-profits? I assume they have a bit more to their mission than just investing in alumns who will generate returns in the form of endowments.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  Just because it's a non-profit doesn't mean the institution isn't out for all the money it can get its hands on. It means that there aren't owners who are able to get the profits distributed to them in some form. But having more money rolling in means a lot to the careers of college leadership, even if they don't own the university - they can expect more prestige and power, distributing travel grants to faculty in the underwater basket-weaving department and whatnot... and generally buffing their resumé in case any other interesting college wants to hire them away.
- bsenftner 14y ago
  Sorry, but "non-profit" does not mean altruistic. It's an exploited tax dodge a huge proportion of the time. Just look at the huge salaries in any successful non-profit, and you know they are not what they position themselves as.
  - binxbolling 14y ago
    This is not even slightly accurate and I hope most people can see your post as the trolling that it is.

Evbn 14y ago

Ivy league schools have need-blind admission and incredibly generous aid packages: they are free for low income students, so your comment is off topic for this post.

loganfrederick 14y ago
His post does not cover the whole story, but it is certainly on topic. Where you're from and income level of your parents doesn't just affect your college experience once you're in college, but also earlier in the process. I'll provide my anecdote: I grew up in a decent suburb with a decent public school system. However, my high school never produced any Ivy League college students and the counselors and teachers there never presented it as an option. Most kids were only vaguely aware of what the Ivy League even was. It was even a running joke in my year about one student who did apply ("Oh, so and so thinks he's going to go to "Harvard"). Meanwhile, the neighboring school districts, which were slightly more upper-middle class, routinely produced dozens of Ivy League-bound seniors yearly. The main differences between my district and the neighboring ones was a 10 minute drive and a half century long history of old money in the other neighborhoods. The point is: Where you are from and your surroundings can greatly impact your knowledge and access to higher levels of education.
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  I wonder if these need based aid package recipients tend to be from (1) lower income neighborhoods or (2) are from lower income families who strained financially in order to live in a higher income neighborhood so that their kids could go to the better schools.
  - mjmahone17 14y ago
    Truth be told, it's probably a mix. My family was a high-ish income family for my high school (which seemed to have a range of income levels), but I'm still on financial aid. It actually seems most students on financial aid at Ivy Leagues aren't from the bottom-fifth of the income bracket, but more the third-to-fourth fifths. And some in the bottom of the top fifth.

davmre 14y ago

No offense, but your comment is a symptom of the very problem the article is highlighting. You say: "A rural kid who makes it to a university will almost certainly have to work an almost full-time job just to cover their living expenses, books, tuition, rent...etc." The point of the article is that this is not true and almost no one knows it! If you go to Harvard/Stanford/MIT/etc -- basically any of the Ivy League, top LACs, or a few other elite schools -- and your family makes under, say, $60k/year, your tuition/room/board/books will be absolutely free. All covered by the school. No crippling student loans, no expectation of you working a job while in school (except maybe 10hrs/wk of cushy work-study for spending money). Even if your family is a bit wealthier, it's still the case that for most middle-class families the cost of an Ivy League education works out to less than the cost of the local state school. Very few families know this. Is there culture shock? Sure, of course. That's part of the point -- for both the poor rural kids and the rich urban kids, and everyone in between. But at schools with the resources to do diversity right (which, sorry to hear, doesn't sound like it includes Virginia Tech), the shock is only cultural, not financial, so the full college experience really is accessible to students from any background.

rckrd 14y ago
After my freshman year at my state university, I transferred to an Ivy League school. My financial aid now covers more than tuition (housing/dining plan/etc). I owe more money for my freshman year at a state university than my 3 remaining years combined at an Ivy League school.
andrewchoi 14y ago
I know anecdotes != data, but I and a bunch of my friends at our Ivy League university applied through the QuestBridge program[0] and for the most part, davmre's comment is completely on point. I work more because I want to have more web dev on my resume before hitting the real world and also because I like being able to pay for some niceties that my mother wouldn't otherwise be able to afford, not because I need to to stay in school. [0] http://questbridge.org/ http://questbridge.org/
scarmig 14y ago
This is totally true: I ended up going to one of those top tier universities just because the economics worked out much better than virtually every other opportunity I had. Depending on how you account for things, actually ended up making a profit without working either a full or a part time job. The culture shock issue was huge, though: half the people in my freshman dorm read the New Yorker (or, more accurately, subscribed to it and prominently displayed it as an affectation), while I hadn't even heard of it. Learning how to ape upper class cultural cues was probably the most valuable thing I got out of college.

niels_olson 14y ago

Holy crap. I went to high school in Kansas and undergrad at the Naval Academy. I just realized where and what "NoVa" is. I thought all those kids just had a year of community college before going to Canoe U. (There is a NoVa CC, but I'm pretty sure now that was not the usual context!)