Socioeconomic Diversity

Diverse college campuses expose students to new ideas and new people. A sometimes overlooked aspect of diversity is socioeconomic diversity.

A few years back, I taught at a liberal arts college. It was a wonderful school, and I think most students leave with an excellent education.

However, there are drawbacks to small liberal arts colleges, and one of the disadvantages of this school was the lack of diversity. The scarcity of minority students was one issue, but I always felt a more overlooked issue was the lack of socioeconomic diversity . No, not all the students were rich or upper middle class, and there were plenty of students who were struggling along with their parents to pay for school. But the majority of students in this school were well off.

Here's one experience that I had at that school. I was helping incoming students register for classes, and two young women were at my registration table, chatting with each other. One said she was nervous about rooming with a stranger. The other agreed, and said, "But at least we know that our roommates are the kind of people who can afford to go to a school like this." Her new friend nodded in agreement.

I wish I could go back to that moment. I didn't say anything, and should have. I should have gently told them that I paid for much of my own state education, and there was no way I could have afforded to attend a private school. My husband paid for his state education on his own. He came from a family that struggled to put food on the table.

I should have asked them, gently, if people like myself and husband would not make good roommates. It could have been a good learning moment for them.

Later that afternoon, I helped register a more unusual student. I learned from her file that her family had been on welfare for much or her life and that she had worked throughout high school to help her family. I hope she wound up as the roommate of one of those other girls. They would have learned quite a bit from her.