University for lower socioeconomic students: it’s more than just enrolling, it’s about remaining

Built on the “American Dream”, the idea that success is achievable through hard work alone has perpetuated much of the working and hiring practices of the United States. However, the assumption that effort leads to success overlooks systemic and structural inequalities that contribute to poverty. It assumes that all individuals have equal opportunities, access to resources, and similar responsibilities. However, many impoverished students don’t have the opportunity to express their capabilities to the fullest at higher education universities, leading to dangerous ideas of incapability and the perpetuation of poverty because employers use college degrees, GPAs, and interning opportunities as markers of intelligence and capability. Furthermore, the challenges and responsibilities of many low socioeconomic students are thus ignored and disregarded. The time that these students have to spend caring for their family and working to help financially support their parents leads to lack of sleep, time to study, and self-care; Similar to a machine constantly on, their performance in school will inevitably suffer, and they’d burn out. However, instead of working to change the social foundation of America and remove ideas that effort is synonymous with future success, the capabilities of these students would shine by addressing just the biggest obstacle in, not just attending, but remaining in university — the financial barrier; unless universities can address and implement financial systems to support students, not just in entering university but day to day finances as well to alleviate more costs, they wouldn’t be able to focus entirely on their academics and the cycle of poverty may be perpetuated by ideas of incompetence.

Many impoverished students cannot go to school because of the cost of higher education; it’s not just tuition but also daily living expenses. People assume that scholarships and full rides will suffice in setting these students up for a successful life in university. Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple. Often enough, it isn’t just the costs of entrance that’ll deter students into dropping out or not even attending. Students would still have to buy textbooks, food, security deposits, transportation, in case they didn’t live on campus, and many other small finances. Regardless of if the necessary purchase was three hundred dollars or five thousand, it still cannot be purchased. For students already working just to scrape by, these numbers will be the bane of their academic existence as they find difficulty in balancing work, school, and other responsibilities and stresses that more privileged students may not have to. As Karen Weese explores, many impoverished students are economizing by “[riding their] bike to school, [taking] classes until lunchtime, [commuting] an hour by train to the restaurant, [serving] meals for nine hours, [heading] back to the college to pick up her bike and pedal home — arriving around 10 p.m., exhausted, with hours of homework ahead of [them]” (Weese). However, they still have to work hours a day just to survive. These jobs aren’t to pay for getting into university but for the expenses while attending: their textbooks, next meals, transportation costs, security deposits, and many more. Not only that, but Angela Boatman found that grants from the Gates Millenium Scholarship Program had “weak evidence that [it] influenced college GPA” (Boatman, 678). Furthermore, they “did not see a large, statistically significant decrease in the number of hours students worked during a typical week” (Boatman, 678). Full scholarships, evidently, are not enough as it doesn’t greatly affect the performance of students after entering college nor does it alleviate their working hours.

Instead, different financial systems, ones not just applicable to tuition, must be implemented to alleviate the challenges of students; these financial systems must address the difficult financial strain that everyday economic expenses create. Even with free rides to university, many impoverished students still didn’t have more academic success. In other words, there must be a different reason in their university life that they work and can’t fully invest themselves in their academics. Peltz explores the result that financial strain has on the work hours, sleep and mental health of college students. Importantly, “students who reported higher levels of financial strain, increased work hours were associated with more sleep disturbance, which subsequently predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms” (Peltz, 582). Often, “low-income and first-generation students…are most likely the ones to be experiencing high levels of financial stress” (Peltz, 583). As Peltz emphasizes, the amount of extra responsibilities low-income and first-generation students have due to financial difficulties diverts attention away from self-care, mental health, and academic workload. Lower socioeconomic students are not in the same equitable position as their peers; they’re struggling with financial security, which, in turn, destroys their mental health and, basically, forces them to drop out as the mental strain becomes too much.

With financial challenges and the likely result of dropping out, much of the lower socioeconomic population are seen as less capable than higher class people; however, this belief ignores the economic situation that pushes students from the lower socioeconomic population to drop out. Lewine, instead, argues that the lack of academic success from many impoverished students isn’t from their socioeconomic background but rather a lack of time and energy. Tracking both rural and urban, unfortunately perpetuating the belief rural is poor and urban is rich, students in the University of Louisville, those from poorer backgrounds were enrolled in the Cardinal Covenant program which, “in its complete financial support of its students, removes everyday worries about money that would otherwise be expected to distract poor students and require major commitments of time and energy in remunerated work” (Lewine, 696). After enrollment in this program, the differences between the GPAs and dropout rates of both urban and rural students lessened as students could spend more time on their studies instead of stressing about their financial situation. Although this study doesn’t directly attack the social stigma behind the capabilities of many lower class students, it can, in the long term, change it as students from poorer backgrounds start to succeed and graduate due to the alleviation of their financial struggles.

Currently, the social stigma surrounding the lower socioeconomic population is that they are less capable. Due to the effort will always lead to a success mentality, hiring managers are looking for specific markers that express to them that graduates, or applicants in general, are capable: a high GPA, many internship opportunities, a college degree, among other things. GPA, internships, and graduating all play an important role in increasing the likelihood of getting hired. Internships, from “10 months to 2 years of effort[,]… could gain an approximately 9 percentage point increase in the probability of employment” with “[a] similar effect on the chances of getting a job…ranking in the top 25% of the class, according to the GPA” (Bartolj, 37). Most importantly though, “this kind of academic success requires 4 school years invested in studying”, so “the highest payoff could be obtained by graduating” (Bartolj, 37). How then, could lower socioeconomic students have a chance to get hired when they don’t have time to work on their GPA, take up internship opportunities, or even graduate? Especially when “although 22 percent of youth from the lowest income quartile attend college, only 6 percent graduate” (Haveman). Evidently, the majority of impoverished students are already missing out on up to eighteen percentage points in the probability of employment.

There are many possible solutions but each with their own downsides. Bartolj proposes strengthening the student population from kindergarten through senior year of high school so that the preparation of higher education is more equal; however, this doesn’t take into account the amount of time needed for many lower socioeconomic students to work and make money as the issue is more financial based instead of intelligence based. Another solution, more directed at the financial barrier of university, was to increase the prices of tuition to more accurately represent the monetary value that would come with a degree and have the students, who would originally pay in full, continue to do so, and then proceed to use the excess revenue in subsidizing the financial burden of the less fortunate students. However, this solution would likely cause outrage in the upper class families as they’re paying more tuition for no visible benefit to them. Not only that, but lower class families might be even more deterred from applying to college unless they know that the increase in tuition is applicable only to upper class families. If that were to be widespread, it would require a well-coordinated marketing tactic, which needs time and money to plan. Ideally, universities would relocate their own money into a program similar to the Cardinal Covenant program of the University of Louisville. Because financial difficulty is directly correlated with mental health and sleep, students of the Cardinal Covenant program are assigned academic advisers who provide guidance and support. Unfortunately, the Cardinal Covenant program is much smaller in scope than necessary to solve an issue like this as it only covers around 300 students, although it is a step in the right direction.

I propose merging the solution of raising tuition and the Cardinal Covenant program, allowing universities to slightly raise tuition for high class families and then relocating some of that money into a Cardinal Covenant program. Furthermore, as the program is created, it is expected to have notable alumni be created from it as students from less privileged families are just as capable, if not more due to the adversity they have to overcome, as upper class students. Universities should then utilize the publicity to advertise the success of the program for more donations. By doing so, it would become a philanthropic effort to better society and give a chance to students that never would have gotten them before. Not only that, but as the increase in tuition wouldn’t be as drastic, and, after seeing the direct results of a new program, higher class families likely wouldn’t be as opposed to paying more for tuition. Hopefully, this solution would turn the attention away from the monetary value and foster a community built on a foundation of ethical equity.

Without acknowledging the financial difficulties of everyday college life for most lower socioeconomic students and by maintaining the idea that only scholarships are sufficient, social perception of the ineptitude of the impoverished population would inevitably continue. With “42 percent of all new U.S jobs…[requiring] a postsecondary degree”, students incentivized to drop out, not because of academic ability but rather mental health and financial struggles, fall behind economically for the rest of their lives (Haveman). Also, during university, student views on self efficacy is crucial for their drive to continue pursuing their degree. If their challenge of being both a student and full-time worker is disregarded, then students would likely perceive their decreasing mental health and academic performance as an issue of self-efficacy; “the perception college sophomore students have about their capabilities influences their academic performance…persistence to maintain a grade point average…as well as to stay enrolled until graduation from the university” (Vuong, 60). If this view of self incompetence is perpetuated throughout, not just university life but adulthood too due to not being hireable, the cycle of poverty would never end; students would just internalize the idea that they’re less capable because of their station, forgetting all their challenges and the amount of determination required to overcome such adversity.

Works Cited:

Boatman, Angela, and Bridget Terry Long. “Does Financial Aid Impact College Student

Engagement? Evidence from the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.” Research in Higher Education, vol. 57, no. 6, 2016, pp. 653–81. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43920070

Lewine, Rich, et al. “College Success Among Students From Disadvantaged Backgrounds:

‘Poor’ and ‘Rural’ Do Not Spell Failure.” Journal of College Student Retention : Research, Theory & Practice, vol. 23, no. 3, 2021, pp. 686–98, https://doi.org/10.1177/1521025119868438

Peltz, Jack S., et al. “The Role of Financial Strain in College Students’ Work Hours, Sleep, and

Mental Health.” Journal of American College Health, vol. 69, no. 6, 2021, pp. 577–84, https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2019.1705306

Bartolj, Tjasa, and Saso Polanec. “An Empirical Analysis of the Effects of Student Work and

Academic Performance on the Probability of Employment.” Economic and Business Review, vol. 23, no. 1, 2021, pp. 26–39,26A. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/empirical-analysis-effects-student-work-academic/docview/2548434939/se-2

Haveman, Robert, and Timothy Smeeding. “The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility.”

The Future of Children, vol. 16, no. 2, 2006, p. 125 https://link-gale-com.libproxy2.usc.edu/apps/doc/A166694564/GIC?u=usocal_main&sid=bookmark-GIC&xid=6221fe70

Weese, Karen. “When a Sudden, Small Expense Threatens an Entire College Career.” The

Washington Post, WP Company, 30 Jan. 2022,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/30/college-poverty-expense-cost-dropout/

Vuong, Mui, Sharon Brown-Welty, and Susan Tracz. “The Effects of Self-Efficacy on Academic

Success of First-Generation College Sophomore Students.” Journal of College Student Development, vol. 51, no. 1, 2010, pp. 50–64. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/effects-self-efficacy-on-academic-success-first/docview/195184080/se-2