The COMBO Series: Students from wealthier backgrounds overrepresented at U., survey finds

Gerson Leiva ’16 grew up in Trenton, N.J. — a city that has reported extremely low high school graduation rates — and attended its public schools through the ninth grade. In 2012, the Trenton public school system had the lowest high school graduation rate in the state at 48 percent, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.

“Day in and day out, there were fights left and right,” Leiva said. “It was just a really bad environment to be in. I wasn’t really surrounded by individuals who wanted to push themselves.”

Coming out of middle school, Leiva applied to two prestigious private college preparatory schools: the Hun School of Princeton and the Lawrenceville School. He was denied by Lawrenceville and, given his annual household income of about $45,000, could not attend the Hun School due to the amount of financial aid he would require.

The next year, Leiva applied yet again to the Hun School and to Peddie School, a private boarding school in Hightstown, N.J. Despite an initial hesitation to leave his friends and the environment in which he had grown up, Leiva accepted the offer to attend Peddie, characterizing the change as both an academic and social transition.

“Peddie was just completely different. When I got there, it was a new world to me. I was with students who were really, really dedicated to their studies, to their athletics and just everything in general. At Trenton High, good athletes were mostly bad students,” Leiva, a long-time soccer player, said.

“When you get to a classroom where the teachers are good, the students are really on top of their game, and I’m just like ‘Damn, I’m surrounded by academics,’ ” he explained. “When I grew up, I wasn’t really pushed toward the books, I was pushed more toward sports. So I didn’t spend that much time reading or anything like that so obviously the more you read the more sophisticated your vocabulary is. So when I got there, I hear these kids speaking huge words and some of them are younger than me.”

According to the Committee on Background and Opportunity III report released in fall 2012, Leiva falls into the 14 percent of students at the University whose annual household incomes fall below $50,000.

The survey, conducted by the Undergraduate Student Government during the summer of 2011, was taken by over 1,800 students from the Classes of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. The survey identified each student by his or her background and compared it to his or her campus experiences and opportunities. The background of each participant was evaluated using 13 categories such as race, geographic region, household income and gender. Life at the University was then measured using 12 categories, like employment, academic life and eating club membership.

The results show that students from wealthier economic backgrounds are overrepresented at the University.

A third of students reported household incomes of over $200,000, compared to 3.8 percent of households nationwide according to the U.S. 2010 Census. Despite the fact that so many students’ households were clustered among the nation’s highest incomes, only 10 percent of students described themselves as upper class, while close to half described themselves as upper middle class.

In addition, about 40 percent attended private high schools compared to 7.7 percent of high school students nationwide, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

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According to the COMBO report, wealthier students are more likely to feel comfortable in academic environments than students with lower income levels, report lower levels of stress and are more likely to bicker an eating club, as well as more likely to bicker successfully.

Of students with household incomes over $200,000, 75 percent reported being accepted to a bicker club, while among students with reported incomes under $75,000, slightly over half were successful.

Comfort levels

Leiva, now a freshman at the University, described Princeton as similar to Peddie, the private high school he ultimately attended. He noted that though he has become more accustomed to the much more “preppy,” academic-focused environment, he finds that his background does influence his comfort level in, for example, a classroom.

“I was intimidated just by the fact that now I’m in a room with people who know what they’re talking about,” he said.

According to the survey report, students like Leiva feel less comfortable in precepts or seminar discussions than students with self-reported annual household incomes greater than $200,000. A similar trend was found with students’ incomes and their levels of comfort with professors.

Earlier this year the University created the Trustee Ad Hoc Committee on College Access in order to increase the access for lower-income students to higher education. In the committee's initial statement, President Shirley Tilghman acknowledged that students from the top 5 percent are overrepresented in the University’s applicant pool and that more can be done to diversify the student body.

The committee is expected to meet twice before the end of the 2012-13 academic year.

In the comments section of the COMBO survey, a student noted that socioeconomic status visibly affected how comfortable others seem to feel at the University. Despite expressing comfort at the University, the student noted different feelings among lower-income students.

“I have noticed that students who come from less financially successful families, who are of racial minorities or who are academically unprepared do not feel that they fit in initially at Princeton, and I don't think their condition improves that much over the four years,” the student wrote.

Another student, who did not report feeling very comfortable at the University, said the dissatisfaction that is expressed as resulting from status or class divisions can be misinterpreted.

“When I was young, my family was much, much less well off than it is now, which has influenced me in some ways,” the student wrote. “I used to point to that fact a lot when thinking about why I don't fit in here. As much as I'd like to blame my discomfort here on others and act like the social stratification here is a result of general hostility on the part of people from nicer backgrounds, I sort of suspect it's more the result of some of my own innate problems.”

USG president Shawon Jackson ’15 said he thinks students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds may face extra stressors that result in a generally lower level of comfort in the classroom.

“One thing that I may suspect is that students from a lower socioeconomic background may feel an added pressure if they have to work and, in addition, go to class, so they might not be able to devote their full attention to that, which may lead to a lower level of comfort in the classroom,” Jackson said.

He added that the USG and the University should focus not only on attracting students to come to the University, but also on making sure they stay.

The University currently has a 98 percent retention rate from freshman to sophomore year, according to its latest data set.

Richard Polo ’16, a freshman from Calabasas, Calif., attended both public and private schools before coming to Princeton.

“In public school, classes were, on average 35 to 40 kids, at least for me,” Polo said. “So, the class environment wasn’t one in which the teacher would call on students — it was more of a pure lecture.”

Whereas in public school, the classes were mostly lectures, with little room for teachers to call on students due to the size of the classes, Polo said, private school provided students with opportunities to get used to visiting and speaking with teachers.

“Here, Princeton has office hours and kids are encouraged to go visit their teachers whenever they have problems.” Polo said. “[Coming from private school], we had no problem speaking up with teachers — you are already used to it. But I think, for kids who didn’t have that in high school, that’s something they really have to get used to and learn to use throughout their time here.”

While the survey shows that students from private high schools are overrepresented at the University, the COMBO report did not find a strong relationship between these students and their experiences at Princeton.

A campus that “exudes wealth”

Based on a study that he published a few years ago of academically selective colleges and universities, sociology professor Thomas Espenshade said there are strong correlations between both the academic performance and overall satisfaction of students and their social class backgrounds.

In his study, students coming from higher social class backgrounds were more likely to be highly satisfied with their college experience, and that satisfaction is a big predictor of whether students graduate on time or not, Espenshade said. He said he believes a large part of this difference may be due to the very nature of universities, which are of far more luxury and wealth than some students may be used to.

“One doesn’t have to spend very much time on the Princeton campus to see that it exudes wealth — you just have to look at the architecture of the buildings,” Espenshade said. “These institutions were, in some sense, wealthy from the get-go, and because of that, those students who come from a more modest economic background can be in Princeton, but not necessarily of Princeton.”

In addition, there was a similar relationship shown between academic performance and social background, Espenshade said, with higher graduation rates and class ranks correlated with higher social class backgrounds.

“Upper-middle and upper-class students are overrepresented in the highest quintile [in graduating class rank], and working class students are overrepresented in the bottom quintile,” Espenshade said.

Bickering Princeton

“Eating clubs are still prohibitively expensive for students who don't qualify for financial aid, but whose parents feel social expenses should be paid by the student,” a student who filled out the survey wrote in the comments section.

The COMBO report shows that wealthier students are more likely to bicker an eating club and be accepted. While 21 percent of students with reported household incomes under $75,000 bickered an eating club, 40 percent of students with incomes over $250,000 also bickered. Of the wealthier students, 77 percent were accepted, compared to 58 percent for the lower income students.

The University currently offers an extra $2,000 in financial aid for all juniors and seniors on aid. While the intention is to offset the higher costs of eating clubs compared to the University’s dining halls, the total amount offered still falls short of the cost of most eating clubs.

Because the eating clubs are independent from the University, the USG cannot directly influence eating club policies. However, former USG president Bruce Easop ’13, who oversaw the COMBO survey, noted that one of the purposes for releasing the report is to inform the student body about campus life in order to bring students to reflect on, for example, the Bicker process.

“There is a reputation that bicker eating clubs are more welcoming to students with a higher socioeconomic background,” Easop said. “There is some data to reflect a greater level of comfort for students from higher socioeconomic background with bicker clubs. It's important to have that data because it makes the student body reflect and think, more than just the reputation, that there is some basis in terms of the perception that students have.”

More directly, the level of a student’s family income may also influence his or her summer plans, according to the survey. During the year, students receive financial aid from the University, but for the summer, lower-income students noted a struggle to accept job or internship opportunities that require additional financial support such as housing.

“I had to forgo an internship in D.C. this summer because I could not afford housing, whereas for other students, housing is a non-issue. All they have to worry about is securing the internship,” a student wrote in the comments section. “I just wish Princeton had more resources for low-income students like myself. While they help us out during the school year with generous financial aid, the same cannot be said about summer plans. I also feel that people who don't need these grants are the ones who receive them which defeats their intended purpose.”

Easop said he hopes that once more COMBO surveys are performed, the USG will be able to see trends in student backgrounds and campus life over time. The ultimate goal, he said, is to make sure University resources are not directed only at a certain set of students.

“One of the things for me that the data shows is that students from different backgrounds experience Princeton differently and they also receive information differently from the University,” Easop said. “Making sure we’re conscious of how resources present themselves to students and making sure that that messaging is accessible to students from a variety of backgrounds so that they’re appealing to not just a certain demographic of students is important.”

This article is the second in a three-part series discussing the results of the most recent COMBO survey. Check back tomorrow for a discussion of religion.