The Price I Didn’t Know I’d Pay
$255 textbook. $52 clicker. $150 fleece at Rosemont 310. $1000+ dues to a sorority. These are as much
a part of Gettysburg life as Servo Thanksgiving, chicken finger Friday, and Springfest.
Fitting into this lifestyle has been a daily struggle for the last four years.
I come from a large family where money is tight. Even though I’ve become an expert at finding the best textbook deals at Amazon, I wonder each payday if I should consider picking up a fourth job. I have spent this year dividing my earnings to pay for graduate school applications, the GRE, and transportation to interviews. These investments in my future have added to a new dimension of stress and I worry that I haven’t sent enough money home to help cover my family’s monthly bills.
The financial strain is tough, but the issue lies deeper than what I can and cannot afford. It’s about struggling to feel included and accepted into a campus culture that assumes all students have money or have parents to hit up.
We are encouraged to discuss race, gender, politics, and identity throughout our academic and curricular activities, yet I wonder why we don’t talk about issues of class and economic disparity. I wonder why I still feel ashamed to tell my friends and professors, “No, I’m not excited to go home for break.” Life would feel very different on campus if it was acceptable to say that going home means leaving the oasis of Gettysburg, with three guaranteed meals a day, a warm dorm room, and facilities only a phone call away. Going home means returning to a stressful situation where there’s little heat, fear that the pipes may freeze, and a leaking roof.
But, it’s not my limited resources, inability to wear Lilly Pulitzer or go out to eat with friends on a whim that get to me. I am not ashamed that it’s tough for me and my family to make ends meet. It’s those personal experiences on top of the institutional examples that make revealing this part of my identity a challenge. It’s the institutional assumption that everyone has access to money that is silencing and isolating.
It’s the multiple faculty members who require a note from the Health Center to excuse my absence from class without acknowledging that some of us don’t have the $20 co-pay or the ability to Student Charge the visit to my parents. The cost of being sick is not just in the lecture missed, but the price of a valid excuse as well as the isolation felt by the assumption that obtaining a note from the Health Center is not a financial burden.
It’s the fact that study abroad is touted from the time a student enters an Admissions Open House as accessible to all students. “Whatever you pay to go to Gettysburg, is what you’ll pay to go abroad.” While this is true, this mantra doesn’t acknowledge that the upfront cost of purchasing a plane ticket in April for reimbursement only in September can be a deal-breaker.
It’s the frequent question, “Why didn’t you rush?” that assumes that just because my friends joined a sorority that I should be able to afford the hefty society’s dues in addition to all the hidden costs of buying shirts for every event or outfits for pin wear.
It’s the conversation I overheard at Bullet in which a student expressed embarrassment for receiving financial aid. Over 70% of students at Gettysburg receive some sort of financial aid, yet our campus culture makes it uncomfortable to acknowledge this reality.
While Gettysburg College has a long way to go to make college financially accessible to all students, my ability to attend is a testament to progress made. For this I am grateful. However, if I knew four years ago that “getting the dot” meant that I would endure a culture that assumes wealth and isolates those without, I may have reconsidered.
Let’s move beyond the access conversation so we can name and address the institutional and social challenges that hinder low-income students on a daily basis.
Anonymous
This post is written anonymously not out of shame, but to protect my family’s identity. To contact me, email surgegettysburg@gmail.com
Really wonderfully written. This post hit home for me, and I’m so glad that this step has been taken to bring more awareness into the Gettysburg community. Way to be brave!
Thank you for sharing this – your situation sounds really challenging, and I really admire the strength you’ve displayed in this essay. Please consider speaking up about the financial burden of copays and plane tickets! I graduated a few years ago, but there are resources to offset institutional costs. Good luck!
so if each of us can kick in a couple of bucks; imagine the difference we can make in ONE life.. and then it pays forward.. Come on ! A couple of bucks? A cup of coffee..
You write that you “endure a culture that assumes wealth and isolates those without”- no one is making you stay at Gettysburg College. It’s a privilege to attend a good school and you should be grateful that you were given this opportunity. If you are that unhappy then you can attend another school. Also, this “inequality” is something that you’ll experience everyday in the “real world.” Unfortunately that’s life. As a Gettysburg financial aid recipient and alum, I just cannot relate to the points that you’re making.
I appreciate your story, and I know you might find my scenario surprising, but I feel that it would offer you insight on a different perspective. I by no means am trying to take away from your experiences and neither am I trying to compare us. I am an only child from a family in the upper middle class. I have never had any struggles with money, for the most part when I wanted something I got it. However it wasn’t like my parents would throw away money. We would use coupons at the grocery store or buy things on sale and I personally don’t own any ‘brand name’ clothing. I even had a summer job and currently have a part time job on campus to give myself a sense of financial responsibility and security. But still, life was and is pretty easy for me with all things concerning money. On the social side though, I have had quite the opposite experience. People that I have met here at Gettysburg seem to be far more forthcoming with what their family lacks rather than what their family has. I have heard numerous people say how they would never be able to afford to come to this school if it wasn’t for their scholarship/financial aid. Or they would share more specific struggles saying how they don’t have the money to do oh so many things. I have felt out of place within these people. I have no idea what to say when someone tells me that they’re worried about getting their foot checked out because they fear the cost or when they say they need to get a job to help out their family back home or how they wish they could afford to buy some necessities but they spent all their money buying supplies for the school year. I have felt ashamed for my wealth, for being better off than these people. Part of me wants to offer them money, since I could spare it. Part of me wants to offer condolences, but I fear criticism since I do not share their experiences. So usually their comments are followed by awkward silences and hasty changes of subjects. I am not saying that my situation is ‘worse’ than yours and again I don’t want to compare our experiences but I just want to bring light that it is not just less fortunate people who have experienced discomfort when discussing economic statuses and that it’s something that is uncomfortable for a lot of people. I hope that in the future this aspect of social diversity will receive the recognition it deserves and it will become another aspect of our identities that is easy to discuss and share.
Only Child – When we express our financial worries, it is not because we want sympathy or anything. It’s just a matter of expressing our lives, and it is often something we take for granted. At the same time, many of us don’t think of ourselves as “poor.” I personally am consciously aware that I have always had at least two meals a day, usually three, and feel that because of that I have little right to complain or accept help because I am wealthy by virtue of the fact that I usually have three meals a day and a roof over my head and that my parents have a car that they can trust not to fall apart halfway to work.
I guess that’s the main thing. We have different ideas of what wealth is. It would probably be a good idea for some of us to start a discussion group on campus about wealth differences. It might remove some awkwardness on each side.
While I appreciate your transparency about your Gettysburg College experience, as a recent Gettysburg alum, I respectfully disagree:
1. It is no secret that the college bookstore is overpriced. Most of America buys books on Amazon.
2. The GRE and most graduate schools that I applied for, and specially the program that I completed, offer fee waivers for those demonstrating financial need. A bit of productive research can pay in dividends as time spent better than complaining anonymously in a blog.
3. Fitting in shouldn’t be a struggle or require courage, it merely requires adapting into a culture where one might not have as much as others. This is not just at Gettysburg, be prepared for it to happen in the real world.
4. Perhaps policy has changed since my time at Gettysburg, but does every class at Gettysburg require a note excusing an absence? Would a phone call from your mother suffice?
5. Participation in Greek life is extracurricular. Many students are highly successful without participating. The same point goes for studying abroad.
6. Wearing Lilly Pulitzer and regularly dining out is expensive and a privilege in which most of the world cannot afford to indulge. I fail to see how not having these privileges can have an adversely impact one’s Gettysburg experience.
7. When you enter post-graduate life, there will be incidents where people have more money than others. That’s life. Should people with greater financial means hide it to make those without feel more included?
There are many people at Gettysburg College, current and alumni, who attended the school without great financial resources. Many of your complaints are about not being able to participate in extracurricular activities. Not all are born equal. Life is hard. Nobody made you go to, or “endure,” or stay at Gettysburg College.
The reason I stay at Gettysburg College is its networking opportunities, career opportunities, reputation benefits and education quality. I did not come to Gettysburg for its social aspects. However, I object to the idea that because I am of a lower income bracket that I should be expected to act like I am in a higher income bracket just as you object to the idea of acting like you are in a lower income bracket. It’s not the activities; it’s the expectations that you be involved in said activities. It’s the peer pressure and sometimes the college’s pressure.
Also, in the real world it is a little different. Housing and work heavily tied to income, so you are likely to be grouped with people of similar income in the real world. Expectations between you will be similar. At Gettysburg, your roommate can be from an income you can only imagine. For that reason, I’d argue there is more pressure to conform in a college setting than in many real world situations.
I similarly was a little surprised by this article- I also was unashamed of being able to go to Gburg entirely on scholarship and grant money. I commuted to save money, packed lunches and didn’t have a meal plan, worked three jobs, didn’t go abroad for fear of hidden costs in food, housing, etc. and that was okay. It didn’t negatively impact my college experience, in fact I think it made it richer. This was what I did so I could have the privilege of the great education that Gburg provides. I certainly saw SOME divide, but mostly it was just appearances- and those can certainly be deceiving. I knew people who were much more wealthy than I whom you would never know it, and one can dress just as nicely as the nicest-dressed person at Gburg by shopping at Goodwill. Almost every extracurricular (besides Greek life) has financial aid assistance so that ANYONE can join (and they follow through with it!). Everybody who has money a little tight feels it more acutely though, and the author is certainly entitled to their opinion, but it seems that they just want to rage against the system a bit to me. Gburg does not tout being accessible to everyone… if it did, it would be a public school, not a private school. Just my two cents. Yes, economic differences do need to be talked about, but someone has to start the conversation, and sometimes that just telling a professor that you can’t afford the $20 fee and not letting yourself be embarrassed about it, or asking a friend for a guest swipe to Servo.
Sorry – I know I’ve written a lot of responses. I just wanted to say that I actually do have a similar view to you. At the same time, I do understand what the author is saying about some social pressures and social awkwardnesses, although admittedly I have not experienced them all that much since freshman year.
While there are some classes at Gettysburg that have abandoned the “$255 textbook” in favor of low-cost or even free, open resources, there is still lots of room for improvement. You and other students might be interested in the Student PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) movement. There is a Pennsylvania group with a project on affordable textbooks. See http://pennpirgstudents.org/campaigns/pa/make-textbooks-affordable
Yes, a thoughtfully introspective and well written article, one in which it would be hoped as a result of some of which has been learned at Gettysburg. Let’s just say that so many years ago, the number one goal my parents set for myself and my siblings for college – and one in which I set for my son – was to be forced out of a personal comfort zone in order to meet, live and interact with others from a much broader socio-economic environment from which we came. Are there wealthy kids at Gettysburg – absolutely – but as noted by you 70% of the students receive some type of aid and in many cases quite a bit. Yes, Gettysburg like so many other private colleges is sickeningly expensive and one in which we’ve paid the full ‘cash’ rate….no, we do not consider ourselves rich – and no our son was not smart enough to gain any dollars for merit. In the end, our son who has never considered himself ‘rich’, call what he refers to as ‘really rich’ kids his friends, absolutely –but so too does he call all others he’s developed friendships with – friends. The haves and have not’s? Never been a factor and I’d be more than surprised if that’s not the case for most all of the students there. Fact, Gettysburg more than bends over backwards for students in need, there are no perks to those paying full cash dollar. Ultimately, it would have been up to you to open up not only to your personal needs with the school administrators/professors etc. but also to your fellow students. Not only in college but in life, only you can bring forth your feelings to those around you – there is absolutely nothing to ashamed of. College is so much more than just what you’re learning in classes which you’ve surely taken full advantage of, however I believe that you missed a four year opportunity to make the most of your college experience, let alone starting a dialogue if you felt so strongly about it.
This is very similar to my Gettysburg experience. You wrote the article that I wish I would have while I was there.