College, Part 34 and Room for Everyone

While Claire-Adele seems to be happy abut her college choice, her wounds from being rejected from fancy, east coast establishment schools still sting. I try to be empathetic, but I struggle. She is convinced that other kids--kids of color, low income students, immigrants, first generation college students--have an easier time getting into top colleges than she does. The way she rants about this makes her sounds like a Trump supporter and it makes me want to puke. How could I have raised someone so completely tone-deaf, self-absorbed and narrow-minded? What a princess.

I was talking to a friend who said that middle class white girls with college educated parents are in the most competitive deomgraphic to get into to college. Lots of people in this group apply, and a large number of them are qualified, hard working candidates. More so than white males. They compete with each other in their demographic. Is this fair? I don't know.

I struggle with this. Our society needs to open doors to kids who have less opportunities to succeed, hence the "Opportunity Gap." I have an old friend from my previous job, a woman of color. Louise Mae was hard working, smart, kind, and grew up in poverty. When I was in high school, I was given a car, clothes and the time to participate in a million activities by my parents. This friend had to take care of her mom and older siblings. She got a job, and went to college at night, a class at a time. Is she still a kind, smart, hardworking person? Yes. Did she get a pass to skip to the head of the line and get a solid professional job when she was 22 like my college education gave me? No. Was that fair? No. 

Policies that benefits society can hurt an individual. Middle class white kids like my daughter don't need to get a job to help their families pay rent. Claire-Adele works, and her paycheck goes in her savings account. She doesn't have to buy her own clothes or food. She lives in an all inclusive resort, fancy excurisions included. 

So why doesn't my daughter get this? I discussed it with my friend Carla today at lunch today. It is Claire-Adele's age, that her teenage brain can't understand trends greater than herself? In fairness, I know "Princess" is a phase, and I hope she grows out of it soon. Is is Claire-Adele's inner stubborness? Is is because she doesn't know any Louise Mae's in her day-to-day life? I didn't until I went to work. My friends who were kids of color in college grew up in middle class to wealthy families. No one I knew came from poverty.

"The problem isn't that more minority kids are getting into good schools," I told Carla. "The problem is that these other kids are putting too much emphasis on getting to into an elite college."

Or is it that Claire-Adele sees herself as female and see this group of half of humanity is getting beat down left and right? I can imagine Claire-Adele thinking, Yeah right girls and women have it easy.

A more qualified woman candidate for President lost to a psychologically unstable, inexperienced man who sexually harasses women. Harvey Weinstein and that gymnastics doctor sexually assaulted young women. Women took to the streets to march to say "This is enough." How does this make her or any woman not part of a protected class?

She would be right, and still... "Adding diversity is probably making all schools better," said Carla. "If a good student like Claire-Adele can't get into an elite college, it means she goes someplace else. And then that school now had stronger students."

By adding kids who previously would not have been candidates to good schools, we are increasing the size of the pipeline. At one point, the US had one college: Harvard. Now we have hundreds of universities. Are we better off now? Absolutely. The problem isn't that too many kids are applying, the problem is too few seats. We need to make sure there is room for everybody.

(And Carla, the accountant, reminded me this: "If she goes to a state school, you'll save $120K over four years.")