Why Poor Students Struggle - NYTimes

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9/26/2014 Why Poor Students Struggle - NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/opinion/why-poor-students-struggle.html

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THE OPINION PAGES | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR |

NYT NOW

Why Poor Students Struggle

By VICKI MADDEN SEPT. 21, 2014

I WAS rushing to change trains at Delancey Street in downtown Manhattan

earlier this year when a tall young man stepped in front of me, blocking my

way through the crowd. He said my name and I looked up.Kelvin! I cried. As we hugged, I considered what month it was. March.

Why wasnt he upstate at school? He knew what I was thinking.

Im taking a year off. Everybody told me I should go to college, but I

didnt really know what I was doing there.

I told him that I had taken a year off from college myself. And that when

my son was unhappy at his small-town college, I had recommended a

transfer to Hunter College, a return to the city. I suggested he get in touch

with the college counselor at the secondary school in Brooklyn where Id

taught him. Josh can help you with a transfer, I said.

He nodded, but I walked away unconvinced that he would ask for help.

A couple of months later, another former student came out from behind the

cash register at a grocery store in Brooklyn to hug me and reassure me that

she wouldbe back in college in September she just needed to earn some

money. As we caught up, she told me that yet another classmate had left a

top-tier college in Maine.

The effort to increase the number of low-income students who graduate

from four-year colleges, especially elite colleges, has recently been front-

page news. But when I think about my students, and my own story, I wonder

whether the barriers, seen and unseen, have changed at all.

In spite of our collective belief that education is the engine for climbing
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the socioeconomic ladder the heart of the American dream myth

colleges now are more divided by wealth than ever. When lower-income

students start college, they often struggle to finish for many reasons, but

social isolation and alienation can be big factors. In Rewarding Strivers:

Helping Low-Income Students Succeed in College, Anthony P. Carnevale

and Jeff Strohl analyzed federal data collected by Michael Bastedo and Ozan

Jaquette of the University of Michigan School of Education; they found that

at the 193 most selective colleges, only 14 percent of students were from the

bottom 50 percent of Americans in terms of socioeconomic status. Just 5

percent of students were from the lowest quartile.

I know something about the lives behind the numbers, which are largely

unchanged since I arrived at Barnard in 1978, taking a red-eye flight fromSeattle by myself. The other students I encountered on campus seemed

foreign to me. Their parents had gone to Ivy League schools; they played

tennis. I had never before been east of Nebraska. My mother raised five

children while she worked for the post office, and we kept a goat in our yard

to reduce the amount of garbage wed have to pay for at the county dump.

My former students are attending Franklin and Marshall, Barnard,

Bard, Colby. They are so much more worldly than I was. Theyve grown up

in New York City, so theyve hung out on the High Line, eaten sushi, visited

museums and colleges on class trips. Their adjustment to college life in

small towns hits different bumps than mine did.

When a miscommunication about paperwork or a parents slight rise in

income leads to a reduction in financial aid, however small, that can be

enough for a student to consider withdrawing. If you dont have $700, it

might as well be a million.

Kids at the most selective colleges often struggle academically, but theyare capable of doing the work. The real key is whether they feel comfortable

going to professors to ask for help or teaming up with other students in

study groups and to manage the workload. At that school in Brooklyn, I

taught history, leading students through writing 10-page position papers

with proper citations, as well as presenting and defending their work to a
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which he depicts his alienation from his family because of his education,

painting a picture of the scholarship boy returned home to face his parents

and finding only silence. Being young, I didnt understand, believing myself

immune to the idea that any gain might entail a corresponding loss. I was

keen to exchange my Western hardscrabble life for the chance to be a New

York City middle-class museumgoer. Ive paid a price in estrangement from

my own people, but I was willing. Not every 18-year-old will make that same

choice, especially when race is factored in as well as class.

As the income gap widens and hardens, changing class means a bigger

difference between where you came from and where you are going. Teachers

like me can help prepare students academically for college work. College

counselors can help with the choices, the federal financial aid applicationand all the bureaucratic details. But how can we help our students prepare

for the tug of war in their souls?

Vicki Madden, an instructional coach for the New York City Department of Education, has taught

English and history in New York City schools since 1985.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on September 22, 2014, on page A25 of the New York

edition with the headline: Why Poor Students Struggle.

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Why Poor Students Struggle - NYTimes