Its Way Too Easy for Privileged Kids to Fake Being Working Class

Being a first-generation, low-income student has been an eye-opening experience not least in finding out how many of my FGLI peers are actually children of privilege.

Boston Globe

I am a first-generation, low-income student at Brown University. Like, actually first-generation and low-income. Not in the appropriated Let me check off a box indicating a minority status that doesnt describe me so that Ill get special consideration in admissions way, but in the My schools annual tuition is over seven times what my mother makes in a year way. Far less glamorous, I know, but at least its real.

During my college application cycle, I watched classmates joke about lying to admissions officers about how their parents never received a college education while writing from the comfort of their $1.5 million dollar homes about their experiences with financial troubles. If anything was poor here, it wasnt their financial status.

While a suspicious number of self-proclaimed first-generation, low-income students spent time horseback riding in high school, I balanced two part-time jobs and continue to do so in college. And while these students were white- water rafting, I was starting a business to pay for my various educational programs that my family could not support. Before my second semester of college had begun, Id sent hundreds of dollars to my family to fix the car, pay for groceries, or whatever else needed to be done that week. Ive had to refuse medical treatment for co-pays not covered by insurance and Ive scrambled to afford university charges for necessary things like laundry and printing services.

Students flaunting supposed traumas and hardships is an all too popular trend in todays cutthroat world of academic admissions. A 2021 survey conducted by Intelligent.com asked 1,250 white college applicants above the age of 16 if they had claimed to be a racial minority on their applications. An astounding 34 percent said yes. Its even easier to claim poverty or first-generation status, with different schools having different interpretations of what these terms actually mean, and as applicants have found benefits in defining themselves as underprivileged, theyve gone to shameful lengths to take advantage of a system that just wasnt designed for them.

Fierceton was not the first, and wont be the last, student to latch on to this complex identitywhats anomalous is that she had her claims investigated. In an interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education, Fierceton stated that she identifies as a first-generation, low-income student based on Penns own definitions, and she has a serious point there. At the University of Penn, first-generation, low-income students are considered those who are the first in their families to go to college and/or who come from low-income households.

The ambiguitiesstarting with and/orhidden in that seemingly straightforward definition invite manipulation. Because there is no example of what low-income means, students are able to prey on Penns honor system, in much the same way that the HFDC housing program in New York City intended for low-income people has become a subsidy for young ones with little income but copious family wealth.

Its not just Penn. At Cornell University, FGLI status is available to applicants who believe that prior academic and social experiences have been limited due to socioeconomic status.

Universities are at least as much at fault here as the applicants lying to them. How can you expect people to follow a rule that was never actually set? Short answer: you cant.

At Brown, first-generation includes students who self-identify as not having prior exposure to or knowledge of navigating higher institutions such as Brown who may need additional resources. The university rejects establishing a rigid formula for defining this unique identity, instead providing vague suggestions that leave things open to individual interpretation, or manipulation. Is any incoming college freshman going to feel familiar with college culture at their university? Fear of the unknown isnt just for the poorthanks, though!

For a program initially constructed to provide resources for underserved people of color, the program consisted of a shockingly high number of wealthy, white, legacy students who presented me with the most outlandish understandings of identity I had ever heard. One boy told me that he was first-generation because his mother went to college outside of the U.S. His mother went to Oxford. Another girl told me that she was low-income because her dad makes $400,000 a year, and thats New York poor. Each time another student offered ill- considered remarks on their background, I remember standing in front of them, eyebrows up and jaw dropped, thankful for the mask hiding my complete and utter disbelief. It was almost like clockwork: meet new classmate, ask about new classmates background, find out new classmate fails to comprehend or acknowledge their privilege, freak out, move on.

The reality of life as a first-generation, low-income student isnt something I would wish upon anyone. It certainly isnt something to be thrown around by schools effectively inviting students to use their story-telling gifts to make their stories fit that identity. Giving under-resourced students a chance is redistributing privilege, not a power-up for applicants to play or a way for schools to signify diversity without actually working to create it.

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