International Students’ Starter Pack
Imagine a rich person. More likely than not, what comes to mind resembles classic caricatures of the uber-elite, of exploitative businessmen like the Koch Brothers or Stephen Schwarzman, who live in their ivory towers far above the rest of us. It is a clear-cut conception of economic inequality that remains largely unchanged from our younger days, when we watched The Muppets’ tense battle with supervillain Tex Richman and could easily differentiate poor from rich and good from evil. In reality, there are not only two, but such a vast number of socio-economic groups that many go unrecognized and are wrongly branded as wealthy or poor. International students at Yale, in particular, are consistently subjected to stereotypes and innuendos that can be hurtful to those who are misunderstood. As an English student from a lower income background, this is a story I am all too familiar with and am determined to put to rest.
If you’ve been on the Yale meme page, I’m sure you’ve seen at least one of the numerous posts about international students. The most popular of these contains classic identifiers of wealth, including, of course, a Canada Goose, with the caption “International Students Starter Pack.” The implicit suggestion of the meme, that being wealthy is a prerequisite to international study, is one that Liverpool native Lucy McEwan, BR ’21, has had to deal with repeatedly. “From the very start of the year,” she told me, “People suspected that I went to a well-known London private school just because I was an English international student at a prestigious university.” For students like Lucy, it is particularly hurtful when people assume she is privileged, as the reality is so painfully different. “I actually have three jobs and work a total of 19 hours per week; obviously this makes balancing studies, work, sleep, friends and family really difficult.” By being put into the box of the elite, low-income international students do not receive the same levels of compassion and understanding as their American counterparts do.
At many American universities, particularly public ones, the majority of international students do come from wealthier backgrounds. At better resourced schools like Yale, however, the disparity between American and foreign-born students is nowhere near as stark. I asked Ozan Say, the adviser for undergraduates at the Office of International Students and Scholars, if the impression of international students here at Yale is an accurate one. “No, of course not,” he responded. “International students, very much like other Yale students, come from very diverse backgrounds.” Say went on to point out that the increasingly progressive makeup of the cohort is in part because Yale is need-blind to international students and, therefore, “many are here on financial aid.” Unlike the majority of universities in the country with need-aware admissions, including Columbia and Stanford, Yale’s need-blind policy means that financial insecurity doesn’t hurt the applicant in the eyes of the admissions office. Wealth, for Yale, does not feature in their self-designed “starter pack.”
While the International Office does not usually deal with financial aid, Say told me that in helping “students in their transition to life at Yale and in the U.S., we indeed interact with students who, at times, may face some financial challenges.” In particular, the strength of the U.S. currency means that “life in the US is much more expensive than back at home,” an added dimension to the struggle for low-income international students. Fred Makolle, BF ’21, the first Yalie to hail from Cameroon in 15 years, knows this struggle first hand. “I admit it, back home I’m well off, but if I translate the income my parents make back here, I would be a low-income citizen.” The stark difference in the price of living does not translate well across currencies. “With the equivalent of a dollar back home I can get a good meal, but I can’t do that here.”
Laura Koech, SY ’21, from Nairobi, Kenya, also struggles with the increased financial burden of being an international student, as well as being from a lower-income background. “I guess break is exactly the difference,” she said of the added difficulty of studying so far away from home. “I can’t go anywhere, because going costs money that I can’t spare and I can’t go home either.” Say says that the increased cost of international study, including the need for expensive flights, is likely a source of the stereotype. But for most of us so far away from home, the added cost is not a characteristic of our privilege, but of our greater adversity.
International students come from all walks of life. To brand them as categorically wealthy does a disservice to those who struggle to work through the week. Given that around 35 percent of Yale College students come from families who make over $250,000 a year (while the percentage of American households that earn as much stands at only 5 percent), wrongly stereotyping one specific group only serves to distract us from the larger issue of economic inequality. We cannot allow ourselves to ignore the blindingly obvious fact that that this university is dripping in gold, and the huge number of wealthy students on campus don’t only come from abroad, but from the most elite sects of American society.
If you want a more accurate image of the international student population, Say suggests looking through the Office of International Students and Scholars Instagram page, which recently started showing profiles of international students. These students come from very diverse backgrounds and are more representative of international students at Yale than the rich kid stereotype. Persistently, the assumption of wealth is a hurtful stereotype that goes beyond the humorous expectation of the Facebook page, and frequently rears its head in everyday conversation. That might be a good thing to keep in mind if you find yourself making your next international student meme.
