@aldol16 @Eleithyia @walloobi At no point did I mention or even allude to social or racial issues. From the very first post in which I posted a chart of the inflation in college pricing in comparison to the consumer price index to socioeconomic status markers my points have always been cogent with the ability to afford a college education being a fiscal issue. There are many fiscal factors that contribute to why
merit scholarships are not going to
low-SES students that have nothing to do with
microaggressions,
race, or
social issues.
First and foremost, time is the equivalent to money. Anyone who has hustled to meet their landlord's rent for the month or has had to drive when gas is at an all time high must understand on an intrinsic level that you must spend money in order to make money. For most people in universities this employment is largely a matter of inconvenience. For a pre-med, working 40 hours a week as a cashier is trivial experience compared to working in a clinical setting. Most employees are started off on minimum wage and hired through school created jobs on the campus in order to save on commuter expense. During the first two years of college, the amount of time that is consumed to work these jobs is negligible. However, when students begin to become more results driven and need to land a job prospect through interning, MCAT prep off campus, engage in intensive research that requires extensive outreach, and are taking level 300, 400-level courses that begin to depart from the realm of common sense then you are going to feel the disparity between your current job and future prospects. For people who have a gratuitous financial support network, this is a no brainer and these students can begin to hedge against their current prospects at Walmart by divesting more time and resources into their future at Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, or what have you.
People with no money don't have this option. Therefore they are stuck in a quandary of educational subsistence where their minimum wage is entirely allocated to living in the current moment despite the individual having the intellectual ability to realistically understand what this outcome will bring four years down the road. More time spent working in addition to the stress of subsistence existence affects the students ability to perform on course work and exams. These struggles do not only apply to so called weed out courses, but also classes which involve new and abstract concepts that are hard for the student to understand. I don't believe that I'm mistaken when I think it's pretty easy for someone to lose motivation when they are eating instant ramen for two weeks because they are allocating time for mid-term week and they have never had a class with concepts like optimization and limits that are presented in Calculus. These students have the deck stacked against them to maintain the marathon needed to complete a semester or even a year of education which are the metrics observed in several merit scholarships that are awarded for performance in STEM sciences.
@aldol16 The reason why I gave you a gold star is because your individual experience is a wonderful exception to the logical expectation that people from low socioeconomic backgrounds don't usually earn merit scholarships. To reiterate, this is not an argument of
race. It is a logical presumption that having less time and less options to achieve the same level of academic merit as someone with equivalent motivation coming in from a wealthier background is not as likely to occur.
As far as I'm aware there is no information regarding relative GPAs that are correlated to socioeconomic status. However, there are reports that list correlative factors between the amount of time students need to graduate and the percentage of these students that engage in STEM majors. This correlation has numerous connotations with the basic idea of time = money. When we begin to discuss more logistical elements of planning a curriculum, the current model of universities is becoming more analogous to a pay-to-win type of structure. For people who are gamers, I am making an analogy that there are many intrinsic elements to the educational market model that bestow advantages to individuals who have the cash and are willing to shell out.
1a) Withdrawal from courses is an option available to all students who feel they cannot continue a class for numerous reasons. However, this option is not available to all students who need a certain amount of semester hours in order to continue qualifying for financial aid. This is another built-in time factor where the government assumes that in order to be considered worthy of receiving a federal loan you must invest x amount of credits which are assumed to equate to a period of time in order for the loan to continue in perpetuity. A second stipulation to the withdrawal point is the strong likelihood of pressure from private sector loans continually building up. In the case that federal loans aren't sufficient and personal funding cannot cover the difference, private loans are taken for a number of expenses. The interest from these loans are unfair, yet are considered to be market equitable. Most students invest in a four year education because they believe that their financial outcomes and market viability are many factors more profitable than their current circumstances, leading them to not take a withdrawal and willing to take a C to get the degree. The limitation of options for those who lack the fiscal affluence to take a W highlights the disparity and the increased demand on such students to excel at a higher level in order to receive the same grades as someone who has those options.
1b) Summer classes. Or rather, summer classes for those who withdrew from regular semester classes (double dipping). These students taking these classes have a leg up over students who were to take the class during the regular semester (watered down curriculum) and a leg up on students taking the class for the first time (second time is the charm). For those students who can attend classes over the summer without the stipulation of being a withdrawal student, they can "get ahead" of the curriculum in order to establish easier semesters where they can perform well with less credits (same effort, less work). This means that savvy students who are keen on performing and managing their
@Med Ed 12 activities can normalize even the most rigorous curriculum if they are ambitious enough to leverage their financial affluence in order to essentially "buy time" for their latter years.
Yes. I belabored a singular point to justify a statement like: Merit-scholarships aren't going to low-SES students. The reality that low-SES students have a fiscally stacked deck against them which inhibits their ability to perform on a school's arbitrary academic point evaluation from a scale of 0.0 to 4.0 could trigger someone to presume that I'm being racist is laughable. So laughable that I need to expound multiple paragraphs on just a first point, not to mention I haven't even touched in making a second point that the formative years before college where students from more affluent neighborhoods can take classes such as organic chemistry in high school bestows exposure and academic advantages that most students do not have. And yet academics alone do not even touch the tip of why students from low-SES backgrounds do not earn merit-scholarships. Which is what a third and final point would have arrived with the argument that a majority of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds simply do not take advantage of numerous scholarship systems and other academic resources. The reasons for this are actually complex and are a territory that is too progressive to discuss with
@aldol16 who believes that I may be a manifestation of borderline microaggression and racism. Perhaps it's the way I worded my statement, "Merit-scholarships aren't going to low-SES students." Because merit-scholarships aren't going to a majority of low-SES students that triggered the presumption of my racial disposition. Little does he know I'm color blind and therefore cannot be prejudiced when it comes to this financial matter.
