I remember when I got into Duke. My mom and I opened the package together, ecstatic to find that its contents brought good news. Yet just as the excitement subsided, the reality set in: With a $45,000-a-year price tag, how could we afford it?
My dad is a Cracker Barrel manager and my mom is an inner city P.E./health teacher. As a family we had endured years of economic hardship, but my parents made countless sacrifices so that my sister and I could go to a decent public school and have some sense of financial normalcy. Once again, they put it all out on the line. We piled into our little Dodge Neon and drove 13 hours to Blue Devil Days.
The car ride was tense. My mom was psyching herself up to hate Duke. She knew that the cost grossly exceeded our paycheck-to-paycheck means. With a strained smile she said, "Rachel, I don't get why this place is so great." Nervous that I would not be able to afford a spot in the Class of 2008, we sat in the Financial Aid Office awaiting the verdict. We left relieved. Generous financial aid and "need-blind" admissions is how the girl from Fenton, Missouri ended up a privileged Blue Devil.
The new Interim Report on the Undergraduate Experience, released last week, made a quick statement about students like me: "There are other facets to diversity, e.g.... economic background, that will need to be explored going forward." One line. Then the report drudged on to address the familiar territory of selective housing, race and gender dynamics.
The previous report, the Campus Culture Initiative Steering Committee Report, also left out socioeconomic status and its impact on Duke culture.
The only exception is its critique of the admissions process. At the time of its release, student concern surrounding selective housing overshadowed a more radical suggestion: "The Committee recognizes the need to raise the low end of the admissions standards, including those for legacies, development candidates, and athletes, so that all admitted students not only have the potential to graduate but have the preparation and commitment necessary to contribute fully to the intellectual life of the community."
Stripping away political correctness, the translation is that the University's liberal acceptance of underqualified wealthy kids (i.e. legacies and development projects) may be negatively affecting campus culture. Blasphemy.
But pinpointing socioeconomic class as a determinant of campus culture is tricky. This is because it is relatively invisible. We all live in the same dorms, dine using the same food points and the kid from Exeter is in the same public policy class as the kid whose parents have a $0 FAFSA parental contribution. No one knows how much money I have or don't have unless I tell them.
As a friend recently pointed out to me, Durham also keeps one's ability to pay under the radar. Shooters costs $5 at the door and domestic Big Beers at Sati's are $4 a pop. With table service out of the question, the wealthy can't distinctly pull away from the non-wealthy. We all end up in the same place-whether it's Shooters, Sati's, P-zades or a section party.
This means that the only blatant indicators of wealth are material possessions-the brand new Beamer in the Blue Zone-or, in the case of development projects, an unfortunate intellectual mishap. Take the kid in your class who consistently makes intellectual observations that are clearly off track. The entire semester you ponder how this kid ended up at Duke. Later you discover that the kid's mom/dad runs a Fortune 500 company. The universe makes sense again.
Yet class distinction is more pervasive than this rare development case suggests.
After talking with Jim Belvin, director of the Financial Aid Office, I learned that approximately 2,500 Duke students receive some sort of financial aid package. Although the Financial Aid Office does not have statistics for families that do not apply for financial aid, Belvin noted that students with a yearly family income of $200,000 qualify for some sort of financial aid.
With roughly 6,200 undergraduates at Duke, this leaves 3,700 students who are not on financial aid. Assuming that a family with a $200,000 yearly income behaves rationally and applies for the financial aid for which they qualify, we can say that these 3,700 students (60 percent of the student body) come from families whose incomes exceed $200,000 every year.
U.S. Census data drives the significance of this number home. The data shows that the aggregate income received by the top 5 percent of families in 2004 was $173,640. Get this-the majority of Dukies meet this criterion, making Duke an institution that primarily caters to the lovely children of America's top 5 percent.
So Duke students represent a wealthy, privileged subset of the American population. Blatant indicators like Beamers and Coach purses aside, how does socioeconomic class operate beneath the Duke surface?
Might socioeconomic class affect the way in which Duke students... view the world?... interact with members of the opposite sex?... join sororities or fraternities?... volunteer in the community? Might economic status influence career ambition and support a culture of effortless perfection?
The CCI and Interim Report glazed over these economic issues, investigating gender and race intricacies, with little attention paid to the elephant in the room. An investigation that does not address Duke's unusual socioeconomic condition can hardly be considered thorough.
Rachel McLaughlin is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Wednesday.
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