ENH 224 | Spring 2018 | College of Staten Island, CUNY

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Chronicles of the Poor College Student: Colleges are Not On Your Side (Maria)

Graduating from a low-income high school characterized by minority students was difficult to say the least. Though the school strived to overcome the cards stacked against them, alas , their efforts fell short in the face of the reality’s their student body faced in their every day lives. Low incomes, gang associations, and teen pregnancy where the contributing factors to their  increasing  drop out rate. But through the schools efforts, more students than not managed to graduate. Unfortunately, the reality of our social class came back to remind us of our limits. Our options where mainly confined to CUNY schools, as tuition was low and financial aid was available, this story reflects the facts discovered by Cahalan and Perna, who write “…the tiered U.S. educational system does not merely reflect class disparities; it actively reproduces them by rewarding the most affluent students with admission to prestigious colleges and by channeling the poorest students and students of color into two-year and unranked four-year schools and, even more insidiously, into exploitative for-profit colleges” (Cahalan & Perna, 2015). While reading Professor Brim’s piece, this citation really stood out to me, as it echoed a reality many of my peers faced, and I’m sure, many other low income students face.

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