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First, DSpar is meeting up with Barnard’s old friends Barack and Michelle Obama today, at a special White House event on creating better opportunities for low -income and traditionally under-served students to succeed at college. The event started this morning at 8:20 and will resume at 1:45. You can watch it here. She’s also live-tweeting it!
She’s also doing a livestreamed discussion with Anne-Marie Slaughter at the Aspen Institute, answering questions about you-know-what. You can watch it here.
DSpar writes:
“I am thrilled to take part in Thursday’s event at the White House and to add Barnard’s voice to the issue of college access,” said President Spar. “At Barnard we are working hard to give students from a wide range of backgrounds the best possible education. I look forward to sharing in this important discussion and to building on our current efforts, in 2014 and beyond.”
She means it, too. Today, Barnard announced several measures to build on its commitment to education access, including:
- Barnard will seek to reach 25 percent more students through its “Barnard Bound” program, which offers low-income high school seniors a chance to visit campus and get a sense of college life before the application process begins. The College will also expand campus visit opportunities to young women who qualify for HEOP.
- Barnard will increase outreach to low-income families from New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, as well as community colleges in the New York metro area and nationwide.
- Additional students will be invited to participate in the “Barnard Opportunity Program,” which offers non-New York State students the HEOP experiences of a summer session before freshman year as well as ongoing tutoring and advising support.
- Barnard will aim to partner with New York community-based organizations to help increase by 10 percent the number of students receiving support for Barnard’s “Pre-College Program.”
- Barnard will identify new high schools with low-income populations and work with these high schools to present their students with workshops on the college admissions process, as well as opportunities to learn about financial aid.
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20 Comments
@Columbia Male im rich bitch
@me too where the white girl at? i’m the wolf of wall street!!!
@Anonymous Why not try and make everyone succeed in college, not just poor people?
@Is this a serious question? Because poor people are already behind in so many ways when they get here (if they get here at all) and obviously need our help? Because being poor necessarily affects your performance and potential at an elite school in which half of its students are from families in the top 3% of income earners in the country? Because it’s our duty to make this school welcoming to all who could contribute to it and not just a perpetuation of class and racial privileges?
I stg people at this school oppose anything that doesn’t DIRECTLY benefit themselves as write it off as unnecessary when the truth is it’s not always a b o u t y o u
@anon Why do rich people always think it is their job to help the poor? It is kinda like the USA thinking its their job to bring democracy to the rest of the world. Also I have to say that sure half the students may be from the top 3%, but what about the people at that 50-30% mark (150k-200k a year lets say) who don’t qualify for help because they are too “rich”, but also cannot realistically afford to send two kids to a 60k a year college each (120k total) + textbooks/travel and make payments on mortgages, medical (which goes up about 50% a year in price) and the rest of living expense. These are the people that are being truly hurt by all of this because now they are priced out of top end private colleges and whose future prospects are thus diminished significantly. We care so much about the lower class that the middle class is left to suffer and degrade. This is why we all hear about the disappearance of a middle class because the middle class always get the short end of the stick.
@Anonamoose All I got out of that is you putting the US median household income at $150k.
Try cutting that in a third, buddy.
It’s also worth letting you know that making $200k puts you in the top 4% in the US. (See U.S. Census Bureau data for 2012.)
@anon I’m talking 150k in Manhattan… Median income is obviously based off cost of living
@Anonamoose So then what in the world does the median income in Manhattan have to do with financial aid policies? Most students’ parents don’t live in there.
@anon This is an example for the sake of argument and my point is people in this income bracket are being screwed over while the rich and poor are both in a good situation in respect to college costs. This is the main point that the upper middle class/lower upper class(whatever you want to call it) is dissolving because of these policies because in no realistic world can a household be expected to spend 60%-90% of their income on 2 kids at schools that are only in session 9 months a year with no hope at help beside crazy long term loans that will only further harm the future prospects of students. A family making 40k a year spending 10k a year on each kid thanks to financial aid is less costly (50% of total income) than a family making 170k a year spending 60k on each kid (~71% of total income). This causes students in top colleges to be more likely to be from the uber rich or the lower middle/low class than from the upper middle class. Thus the upper middle class has a distinct disadvantage in their hopes at future success, an argument that is made when trying to promote giving financial aid to the poor. Now you have a choice in the current system: Do you give financial aid and help the poor overcome unfair disadvantages, but at the same time hurt the upper middle class, or do you not do anything and hurt the poor? There is no good answer to this in our current system, but this is the real choice that we are making. In an ideal world all those who really needed financial aid would receive it, but universities are a business and they will do whatever helps them out the most (more alumni donations, better PR etc.) and marketing to alumni’s that their donations will go to the poor kid in Harlem who would never have the same chance sounds a lot nicer than helping out the small business owners kid from Long Island.
@BC '14 I agree – Barnard has a very barbell-ed student population. There are a lot of young women from affluent backgrounds and a lot of women from low-income backgrounds, though not much in between. It’s fantastic that Barnard is able to offer such comprehensive financial aid to low-income students, but it doesn’t do much to accomodate or attract middle class students through fa packages. Though $150k household income does place an individual in one of the highest income brackets of the US, the exorbitant cost of private college tuition is still prohibitive to people from these families – as anon lists there are other major costs like mortgages and other siblings in school that are not taken into account. Additionally, Barnard does not care to asses liquid versus illiquid assets when gauging financial aid, thus making it harder for students to foot the bill who have family investments in real estate or businesses – they ostensibly have a high net worth but not actually the ability to spend it.
@Anonymous I come from a bracket of $100k, and I found Barnard to have a great package for me. While my sibling was still full time in college (3-year overlap), they basically cut my expected contribution in half, so the 2-children-in-college things wasn’t an issue. Also with a $100k salary generally comes great benefits such as thorough medical coverage for your kids, an expense I never have to worry about. I have had to contribute financially to my education personally (e.g. working since freshman year to cover all textbooks and personal expenses, working every summer and paying my own rent, maxing out on loans), but I have never felt inhibited from attending a private college.
Of course this is only anecdotal evidence.
@Captain Obvi They are trying to serve traditionally underserved groups. The traditionally served groups are already served. Nothing’s changing for them.
@anon Why would poor people go to Barnard when Columbia is better and an offer more money. Barnard should focus on attracting more feminazis who actually want to go to a school where the most important thing is hating on, excluding, and discriminating against males.
@BC 14 Believe it or not, Columbia does reject some poor people who Barnard might accept. Plus, if you’re receiving full aid there isn’t a difference now that Columbia is back to putting a loans in financial aid packages.
@finaid student whoawhoawhoa what? they’re putting loans back in finaid packages???
@Anonymous please learn grammar
@BC 14 As much as I complain about my financial aid package not being quite enough to make me comfortable, Barnard’s commitment to college access is truly impressive given our relatively tiny endowment. These services encouraging more applications from students that will require financial aid is a strong testament to that commitment. I’m proud to attend a school with its priorities straight.
@I like the focus on class-based affirmative action we still have a lot of work to do in this area…Thank you, DSpar.
@Anonymous read that as “and all white looking amazing”
more relevant than you’d think
@HEOPloudandproud Hell Yeah, HEOP (which is probs ASEP now, I’m not sure?) + CSTEP!!! Get that funding for low-income students DSpar!