KellyNoel Waldorf, a senior at Duke University, “came out” to her school as broke in a piece for her campus newspaper late last year. She identified her second day of orientation as the exact time when she realized that her financial status affected the way she flourished on campus. Teen Vogue published an article that pinpointed the plight of the low-income student at top-tier schools, using KellyNoel and students from Dartmouth, Scripps, NYU, Northwestern and Stanford as examples.
“I was so angry all the time because no one understood where I was coming from,” Stanford sophomore Tracy Yang told Teen Vogue. “I didn’t get why my roommates didn’t clean up after themselves or why they thought the world revolved around them. I was really angry because I was internalizing my problems and wasn’t allowing myself to express who I am.”
I can relate. Howard University, my alma mater, is considered to be one of the topmost historically Black universities in the nation. Before I began my freshman year, my aunt told me about the perils of dealing with “bourgeois” Black folk.
“You’re going to school with people who come from money,” she warned. “They have things that you don’t that you might want. And they’ll be stuck up. But don’t let it get to you, because you’re there for an education.”
And sure enough, I found myself playing catch up as soon as I touched down on campus. For fear of being judged, I didn’t feel comfortable walking the Yard in my bargain basement duds, pulling out my cheapo cell phone in class and being transparent about being denied a Parent Plus loan, something that almost kept me out of school my second semester.
In an era of finessing and Instagram flexing, it isn’t easy to come out and say that you’re having trouble making ends meet…especially if you have friends who can’t relate. But admitting – and getting a nice, firm grip on reality – is the first step. The rest will follow.
[Lead image via stephanieschiraldi.wordpress.com]
7 Ways to Deal With Being the Broke Kid at a Rich School
