“I Don't Need Your Pity and I Don't Need Your Condescending Tone” 

Ann Arbor, MI is a beautiful place to live. Tree-lined streets with quintessential colorful houses and a bustling social scene accompany the brick-laden, ivy-clad buildings that hallmark one of the world’s best public universities. And just like any school that is “best”- or “Ivy”- anything, the University of Michigan has a not-so-secret secret; the home of the “Leaders and Best” is also home to a massive, glaring wealth gap and nepotism problem. 

Sound familiar? No matter their financial background, every UofM student has likely heard someone, somewhere, share a similar sentiment during their time at the University. In response, many students are left feeling defensive. Some feel it’s unfair to pin the issue on young college kids who, even if from wealthy families, can’t change anything themselves - all college kids are broke and struggling to some extent. Other students feel that their struggles are ignored and that their real disadvantages are undermined to maintain the comfort of their peers. This discomfort and defensiveness surrounding the subject of socioeconomic class prompts students to avoid important conversations about their circumstances. Instead of trying to understand each other better, students are left to make assumptions, and they develop feelings of resentment towards students in different socioeconomic classes from their own.

Jake*, a higher-income student at UofM, feels the pressure. “I wish more people focused on the upper 0.1% and how they’re the root of a lot of the wealth inequality in America”, he says, “I’m well off for sure, but my parents have one house, drive two cars, and both work full-time. Medical emergencies or sudden costs may not be devastating financially for us, but they still can make a serious dent.” Data published by the New York Times collected from million of anonymous taxpayer records suggest that Jake, who describes his family as “upper middle class, towards the higher end”, isn’t alone in his feelings. The median income of student families at UofM was reported as $154,000, with 66% of the student population at UofM coming from families in the top 20% of wealth nationwide, defined by the study as making at least $110,000 a year in 2017. With nearly half of the student population coming from families that are “Upper Middle Class” at a minimum, it’s likely that many students at the University of Michigan share experiences similar to Jake’s. 

However, at UofM, “wealthy students” are not just students from families who are Upper Middle Class. Continuing from the New York Times data, 9.3% of students came from families in the upper 1.1% of wealth nationwide, defined by the study as making at least $630,000 a year in 2017.1 For comparison, the top 50% of income, or average income, in 2017 was roughly $42,000 a year. Practically, this means that roughly two thirds of students at UofM came from families making at least 2.6 times the income of an average American, and roughly one in every ten students came from a family making, at a minimum, 15 times the income of an average American, and well over a half-a-million dollars annually. 

Sophia*, a low-income student who goes to UofM, suggests that the presence of exuberant wealth is obvious on campus. “They’re all decked out in jewelry”, she says, “It’s very simple jewelry, so it’s not over the top, but you can tell that everything they’re wearing is real, and it costs them money”, she continues, “I’m talking, like, one-to-ten-thousand dollar necklaces, one-thousand dollar jackets - which, by the way, everyone here wears in the winter. [...] I can’t even list some of the brands people wear because they’re expensive like that, I’ve sure never heard of them.”  Jake, a higher-income student, is also shocked at the flippant displays of wealth on campus: “I know of multiple people who never wash their own clothes, they just buy more. Like, they buy more clothes when they get dirty, and they throw the old ones out.” 

By numbers alone, higher-income students are well-represented within the student population. Compared to other public universities of highly selective admission, UofM had the highest percentage of students in the top 1.1%, 5%, and 10% of wealth in the United States. Although there are great differences between students from families that are upper-middle-class and families that are extremely wealthy, both of these groups are well-represented on campus. The resources and lifestyles they have access to are comparative, but neither group is at a real loss due to their families’ socioeconomic status. “To me, I have a lot of support with rent and tuition, so financial hardship is much more of the struggles to pay for food, gas, and other expenses. I think that’s a different story for a lot of people, as tuition and rent are huge financial burdens”, says Jake. 

Low-income students, on the other hand, make up a comparatively small fraction of the student population and are struggling just to get by. As published in the University’s report on the culmination of “D.E.I. 1.0”, 13.6% of UofM students were low-income in 2021, and 19% were eligible for Federal Pell Grants, which are a form of need-based aid awarded to students with “exceptional financial need”., Maddy*, Sophia*, and Hannah* are all low-income students who qualify for a Federal Pell Grant and were interviewed alongside Jake*, a higher income student, to facilitate better understanding among students of different socioeconomic statuses. 

Despite a crude awareness of their circumstances in college, none of the lower-income students were born aware of their family’s financial situation. When asked how they knew their SES, all three lower-income students dove into personal accounts, sharing moments throughout life that resulted in them realizing their disadvantage. “I became really aware of how much stuff cost, at a really young age”, says Hannah, who realized her SES through “speaking with other people”. Maddy said, “It’s noticeable when you qualify for low-income assistance, like at school.”  Sophia realized a little later in life: “I grew up thinking that everyone around me was in the same situation as me. And when I realized late in high school and especially in college that the people around me that I was friends with were actually better off than me, and they knew that they were better off than me too,” she continues, “the first thing that actually made me realize that I was not in the same situation as my friends, and that I was in a lower tax bracket than them, was any time we would go out to eat or go out to get coffee or something. Any time we did anything like that, they would always offer to pay for me and not for anyone else. It was always me.” All three lower-income students expressed some realization that others perceived them in a way different from how they perceived themselves. They expressed that growing up, their peers perceived them as lower-class, long before they knew they were lower-class, and long before either party knew what that meant. 

This sense of dissociation between internal identity and external perception, regarding SES, is common among lower-income students. When talking about their experiences at the University of Michigan, all three lower-income students shared something similar to the hard-hitting realization of financial difference that Sophia experienced in high school. For them, the wealth of their college peers was startling and made them much more aware of their position as lower-income students. Hannah recounts a specific situation in which a peer casually mentioned purchasing multiple single student-section football tickets for “only 400 dollars” each. She appeared baffled that students had that much money to spend, continuing to recall multiple instances of missing out on social events due to the associated cost, particularly going out to eat with friends. 

Jake cites these missed experiences as a crucial part of the college experience. “I think the average college student should be able to afford rent, food, some sort of transportation, and have enough money to get the stereotypical college experience”, he says. “They should be able to go out to eat sometimes, go to bars, local experiences, et cetera.” 

Although critically aware of the experiences they’re missing out on, these instances are far from the first thing on low-income students’ minds. “I’m constantly having to decide between, ‘do I work or do I go to class, do I work or do I do homework?’”, says Maddy, “Like it’s not even as simple as having to think about your day-to-day expenses more than most other people do. It’s far beyond that. A low-income student never has time.” Sophia elaborates: “A low-income student is probably working a work-study job to pay for their college. A low-income student probably goes to the maize and blue cupboard regularly. They are always studying and have less money to go out and do things with their friends,” she continues, “I think that if somebody, if a stranger came in and looked at my life, my current life here at college, I think that they would find it boring and miserable.” 

When asked what the average college student should be able to afford, Hannah looked off into the distance as she thought, as if trying to will her wishes into existence. “Food, housing, just basic human needs. That would be nice”, she answered. All three low-income students mentioned food, housing, and basic necessities as things college students should be able to afford. “You shouldn’t have to worry about, ‘can I afford to eat and live somewhere’, while also being a full-time student”, comments Maddy, suggesting that these are concerns she has on a daily basis.

There is plenty of data on the disadvantages lower-income students face. A research thesis published in 2013 asserts that “students living in poverty continue to underperform their peers”. Contributing to this are increased barriers in accessing “resources necessary for students to succeed academically”, attitudes & perceptions regarding wealth and ability, and tendencies of social cohesion that prevent lower-income students from accessing resource-rich networks.7 The University of Michigan ranks remarkably low in the success outcomes for its low-income students. The Social Mobility Index is a “measure [that] reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at [x school] moved up two or more income quintiles”. A study reported by the New York Times reported that the University of Michigan had the lowest Social Mobility Index among all 25 public peer institutions of highly selective admission. 

Making up less than one-fifth of the student population, low-income students are truly at a loss. Compared to higher-income students, their differing circumstances lessen their access to any resource or lifestyle. It is not a question of “what” they will have access to, it is a question of “if” they will have access to anything at all.

Higher-income students often operate under the false assumption that low-income students have an unfair financial advantage due to the aid they receive from the University. Throughout online forums, college students frequently complain that it is “unfair” because lower-income students get gift aid and lower-interest loans that they don’t have access to. “What they don’t realize is, financial aid only covers necessary expenses”, says Hannah, “I have food, I have a place to live, but that’s pretty much it, because that’s how it turns out, budgeting-wise.”

Sophia offers a critical and detailed perspective on what daily life is like for a lower-income student from a financial standpoint: “Financial hardship looks like sitting down to do your budgeting because you can't afford to live being oblivious of your money. Your parents don't pay for your college, or your rent, or your groceries. In fact, they don't help out at all. Every time you do it, you want to cry. Because guess what? You spent $50 on groceries that week, and you only allotted $47 for groceries. So that $3 extra that you spent on groceries means that if your friends want to go get boba on Sunday night, then you can't go with them because guess what? You spent your extra money on groceries. Normal people would just say that's $3. Whoop de do. That's pretty good. But for me? Those 3 dollars might mean I can’t eat at the end of the month.”

Due to their familial circumstances, low-income students don’t have someone they can fall back on when money is tight, or when something comes up. “You can’t just ask for parents to pay for something for you,” says Hannah. For lower-income students, all expenses are theirs to bear on their own, from groceries and rent to medical co-pays and winter boots. The financial pressures lower-income students face are much more strenuous and devastating than their higher-income peers may realize.

Despite this, one of the main grievances of the lower-income students wasn’t regarding their circumstances, but the way higher-income students treat them. “They like to dismiss you and not include you in the conversation or take your opinions as valid or your knowledge is valid”, Sophia* says, “They do their little thing where they're dismissive of you, [...] despite you being in the conversation. I'm just like, ‘Oh, I get it’, and then I write them off as an option of being a viable partner in class because they won’t take me seriously.” 

Her experience is common among lower-income students. One research thesis asserts that students of different socioeconomic status develop different social networks as a result of cultural differences, and “little or no individual mobility occurs among networks because of both self-regulation and seclusion”. Further, multiple studies have shown that middle and higher-income students feel little empathy for people in poverty unless they are immersed in a simulated environment., 12 In the Community Action Poverty Simulation (CAPS), a classroom is set up to facilitate role-playing where participants assume the role of either a community worker, an impoverished child, or an impoverished adult and are challenged to simulate a month of managing bills, childcare, insurance, and crises. Before participating in the simulation, students indicated feeling “apathetic” towards those in poverty and attributing their situation to “Individual Attributions” like “laziness and lack of education”. Upon completing the simulation, “students expressed a newfound empathy for those living in poverty”. They were more likely to attribute their situation to “Structural Attributions” like “Low wages, inflation” and “structural failings present in American society.11, Social behaviors and preconceived notions surrounding poverty in college students present a difficult reality in which the experiences of low-income college students are impacted dually by their circumstances and the actions and inaction of their affluent peers.

The remarkable impact of these social factors suggests that higher-income students may be incorrect in their belief that lower-income students’ circumstances are “out of their hands”. While it is likely that higher-income students feel rightfully frustrated and overburdened by other students’ financial circumstances, it’s also likely that higher-income students are unaware of the stressors and disadvantages they do not have to face, and they don’t realize their negative behavior towards lower-income students. Discomfort and resentment, in combination with an inherent misunderstanding of students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, likely contribute to the negative and exclusionary attitudes higher-income students direct toward their lower-income peers.

In many ways, The University of Michigan once again outranks its peer institutions. This time, because it’s ranked #1 for the highest median income, #1 for the largest share of students from the top 1%, and remarkably dead last for its social mobility index. The result? A social gap –or chasm, rather– between the 66% of students in the top 20% of wealth and the 20% of students who find themselves far below it. With such a large population of wealthy students, the burden falls on lower-income students to adapt and cater to a lifestyle they do not have access to and are actively excluded from. A lack of communication or respect, along with social exclusionary tactics, makes it difficult for higher-income students to understand or truly care about the lived experiences of their lower-income peers. When asked, lower-income students express that the largest issues they face are extreme time constraints, food insecurity, housing insecurity, and social exclusion. 

“I don’t expect other people to care”, says Sophia, “it's more like, is this a person that exists in my attainable resources? If I have a question about a class, can I go to that person and not be shut down? Can I go to that person and have them actually look me in the eyes and help me? And so, I guess I assume that a low-income student would be willing to do that, while a high-income student would not be able to, or be willing to.”

Assuming that, in an ideal world, students are both willing and able to approach and listen to each other, what would lower-income students want their affluent peers to know or understand? 

Maddy wants you to know that “It’s such an incredibly circumstantial thing, as to why somebody’s in a lower wage or lower power job.” Hannah thinks it’s important to recognize that “You have to work very hard to get to UofM in the first place, as a low-income student from a high school that doesn’t have money. No one’s gonna pay for your college or give you a job when you graduate, so the stakes are a lot higher for low-income students”. 

As for Sophia? 

“Nothing. I wish that they would leave me alone, and I will leave them alone. I don't need your pity and I don't need your condescending tone. So just let it be, leave it alone, and I'll leave alone all the privilege that you came into that you don't see.”