The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students

Researchers and college administrators have too long treated all low-income students as one group, but the transmission of cultural capital from parents to children does not tell the whole story, as there are great differences between students who go to elite high schools and those who do not, regardless of class. Low-income students who attend elite high schools before college carry some privilege, although they are still not entirely a part of the elite world. They have not known privilege since birth, and they still have to deal with the realities of the worlds their families still occupy.

To help both the Privileged Poor and the Doubly Disadvantaged, college staff needs to better understand both groups; greater exchange between scholars of higher education and scholars who study poverty could facilitate this. For example, because one in ten of Jack’s subjects had experienced homelessness at some point before college, faculty at Renowned could benefit from learning about the effect of homelessness on students’ mental well-being. Similarly, counseling centers should be just as well equipped to help a student deal with the death of a friend at home from an overdose as they are with assisting students with the death of a grandparent. The goal is not to encourage colleges to appreciate the divergent experiences of students by talking to them about inequities in society and on campus.

Another problem administrators have is thinking that youth who have made it out of distressed communities and into elite colleges have already won. Instead, colleges must understand how poverty and inequality shape students’ college experiences, and how college policies can magnify class differences. For instance, every institution has an unspoken, hidden curriculum that people take for granted. Instead of relying on this student knowledge of these assumptions, colleges should be explicit about defining terms such as syllabus, internship, fellowship, and the like. Likewise, researchers ought to spend time investigating the effect of food scarcity on college students, just as many researchers have already studied how hunger impacts younger students. Researchers have long argued that when people encounter signals of hostility toward their racial, class, or gender group, they tend to avoid similar settings in the future. Thus, a negative college experience may prevent the disadvantaged from seeking work that reminds them of college. This could make it less likely that professions diversify and that bright people of all classes and races tackle the nation’s toughest problems.

Finally, Jack’s research offers several suggestions for improvements. While it is clear that students who have attended private schools are better prepared for Renowned, we should not conclude that there should be an increase in funds for students to attend private schools, a cause championed by Betsy DeVos when she was Secretary of Education. Funneling money to private schools is not the solution because it only impacts individuals, not the collective. Instead, the nation needs durable investment in underfunded communities. This is unlikely to happen at the federal level, but high school teachers and principals could work toward creating a college-going culture at their schools by encouraging a curriculum of self-empowerment and providing students with the tools to thrive in college. Even simple fixes such as using the same language colleges use could help students better transition to college. Scholarship funds from groups like the Gates Foundation could also work to facilitate cash transfers to their recipients to help with the extra expenses students do not even know about until they start college. But the greatest need is for administrators at colleges to review their own policies and change any that exacerbate social inequality on campus. Finally, there are two easy solutions to issues of food insecurity: expanding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility to college students and increasing the amount of money available to students through Pell Grants.

James Baldwin noted that his love for America gave him the right to criticize it. Similarly, Jack hopes everyone will demand as much of the colleges they love as their colleges demand of them.