It sounds obvious to some—to others not so much—but it is incredibly difficult for socioeconomically disadvantaged students to thrive at Princeton without assistance beyond basic aid. Although I do concede that financial problems face everyone, it must be stated that they have a substantially larger impact on low-income students like myself. Any minority faces some degree of setback, the magnitude of which is dictated by how its identities fit within the power dynamics and hierarchies of the larger society. At Princeton, this manifests not unlike it does in the entirety of the United States, where those who exist outside the status quo have found (and continue to find) themselves struggling against an institution designed for other people.
The University earnestly tries to mend this disparity through programs to help those who haven’t benefited from the privilege that made its foundation. Unfortunately, however, Princeton’s history of slavery, sexism, racism, and the like still leaves traces in its structure today, embodied in part in its misuse of its funds.
When building its Lewis Library, Princeton spent sixty million dollars on its construction.1 That money—an incomprehensible amount to many—was given by Peter Lewis, which, with another fifty-five million a few years prior, made Lewis the largest donor in Princeton history. In his library, the egg-shaped chairs cost $5,934.2 Although the library is great, from its German math books to sheets of plexiglass sticking out of the roof, it physically represents what is incoherent about Princeton’s spending tendencies relative to its mission of helping underrepresented and socioeconomically disadvantaged students.
While Princeton’s financial aid program is strong compared to that of its peers, the University nonetheless finds itself in an ambiguous relationship with the students who use it. Customarily, students on financial aid also use other programs designed to assist them with their transition to Princeton and with the accompanying complications and hardships that arise in the process. Some of these programs (Scholars Institute Fellowship Program (SIFP), the LGBTQIA+ Center, the Women*s Center, among others) would be more robust with additional resources. The summer savings contribution could be budgeted away, and the loan repayment policy could be fixed. Yet, the Board of Trustees approves of investing in six-thousand-dollar chairs. Clearly, something strange is happening with funds.
President Chris Eisgruber announced plans for increasing the student body’s proportion of low-income students3 and constructing a new residential college to accommodate the overall population increase.4 To do so responsibly, it must ensure a hospitable environment and address its history of oppression. Allowing more students to receive a phenomenal education is truly great, but to do so, the University must free them as much as possible from the mental burden of financial scarcity so that they may study, grow, and reflect. The first step is managing resources more responsibly.
What compels the University to purchase thirty-three near six-thousand-dollar chairs? Superficially, one can claim that it was the donor’s wish. This might be true. But what makes the donor’s wish agreeable? The expense offers socioeconomically disadvantaged students the chance to sit in those chairs—items that model, and indeed recreate, the circumstances that set them back in the first place. The resulting optics are that the University uses displays of wealth to supplement and compensate for the incomplete assistance it provides, where the simple proximity to (or the actual ability to sit in) the capital Princeton offers is a benefit in itself.
Yet exclusivity and privilege cannot be a reparation for the disadvantaged. This model selects and promotes the “worthy” poor to the economic and cultural elite rather than striving for a more just society at large. Princeton does a remarkable job of getting low income students to high income jobs, and that is a tremendous achievement.5 But while many of these students escape the cycle of poverty and education-based discrimination, their communities are still poor, and the cycle itself remains unthreatened. Although it isn’t unique in doing so, Princeton shepherds its students into a higher class but doesn’t take commensurate action to decrease the absolute number of disadvantaged students. Moreover, this sleight of hand implies that the best course for these students is to assimilate into Princeton and its culture. This not only trivializes the needs of these students by underestimating the difference between them and their better-off peers, but also suggests that they passively join a world that once contributed, and still does today, to what put them at their disadvantage, and a world whose beneficiaries promote the rhetoric that creates the status quo and reap the fruits of it as well.
In the past, the institution has directly supported white supremacy (as Woodrow Wilson blocked the acceptance of black students), and today, it institutes fees (such as the summer savings contribution) that impose acute hardship by demanding money that students don’t have. Princeton contributes to the oppression of its community members, and then attempts to absolve itself by directing funds toward bringing more students into its fold. Is this the best thing to do? Does this strategy allow the institution to do everything it is capable of doing, given its endowment, status, and political power? If what is mentioned above doesn’t suffice for an answer, it is a no. Rather, the University and its body—students, professors, and faculty; external community members and alumni—need to define a new benchmark of success for disadvantaged students, a path beyond mere assimilation.
Developing and normalizing this new benchmark would require Princeton to restructure itself. First, it will take working for social equity and dismantling the hierarchies that fill the University. Second, and interwoven with the first task, Princeton must prepare its students not simply to take their places at the top of our socioeconomic hierarchy but to dismantle it. Only then will we see a change in the status quo, at Princeton and on a larger scale. Sitting in six-thousand-dollar chairs familiarizes students with the life of America’s ruling classes, but it doesn’t sincerely position Princeton to serve in its stated goal of helping disadvantaged students and their families.
Both are idealistic. However, the following changes will be a step in the right direction: Grant low-income students access to cash for freedom of travel over breaks like their wealthy peers and, moreover, the ability to participate in pay-to-access social structures on campus. Ensure them a summer without the anxiety of and responsibility to debt. Abolish the parental contribution for students on financial aid, as it hits hard on students who have unreliable relationships with their families. Guarantee them medical assistance; cover their non-negotiable textbook expenses; expand the curriculum centered on historically marginalized groups until it carries at least equal weight to the curriculum that denies those groups. Give programs that affirm underrepresented students and combat the status quo what they need to catch up on the decades during which they didn’t exist. The loan policy needs change: students who take out loans have a grace period for repaying them once they graduate, but taking time off for even medical or family emergencies triggers that period as soon as they take their leave. The list is overwhelming and it continues.
Some low-income students find the assistance they receive through assistance programs to be sufficient for their immediate needs as they make it through college. Yet, programs like the Freshman Scholars Institute (FSI) and the Scholars Institute Fellows Program (SIFP) are only able to reach a percentage. While both accept student applications, access to their support should be unconditional for the students who could use it, rather than reliant on students’ readiness and ability to assert their own needs.
Princeton’s structure for resource management is all the more important when bringing in more students, across all classes, into its realm. If we want to create a hospitable environment for all, we must focus on fixing the distribution of resources as part of this larger goal. Across any path of all-encompassing emancipation, there are obstacles to be found. This process at Princeton is just one of those obstacles. Investing in $6,000 chairs just won’t do.
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