I do not know a single college or university that would say increasing diversity is not a top institutional priority. Of course, this week’s lectures have given quite the nuance on diversity and categories, but some of the traditional ways schools look to diversify can include athletics, arts, academic interests, geography, urban/rural, and of course, racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. I’d like to look at socioeconomic diversity. Simply put: socioeconomic diversity is a difference in a family or individual’s access to financial resources and how it relates to privilege, power, and control (https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status/). Cope and Kalantzis talk about the difficulties Roma children face especially because they often come from lower SES backgrounds and are nomadic. Rather than try to understand the uniqueness of their culture, other Greeks look down on them and their “exotic” way of life; they are often times seen as beggars and thieves and not welcomed in the classroom (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23265507.2016.1164616). I believe, and have seen in my own experience that having students with varying socioeconomic statuses increases diversity in the classroom AND LEARNING! because students will have different interpretations of texts and bring their unique background to conversations. I remember in one of my literature classes reading a Junot Diaz story where the narrator wanted to “hide the government cheese” before a woman he was interested in came to his house. While everyone (who was vocal at least) read this as the narrator trying to hide the fact that his family bought food stamp products, I (bringing in my own lower SES background and childhood) thought this was because even if it was government cheese, there wasn’t enough to feed the whole family and he couldn’t share with an invitado/guest (even if she was a romantic interest!).

In terms of increasing access to colleges and universities for lower SES students, Cope and Kalantzis talk about how scholarships can be seen as a method of assimilation: “Scholarships to expensive schools for a select few, those who have been ‘passed’ according to measures of exceptional excellence styled in the image of the accepting institution, followed by an expectation that those who have been accepted rise to the standards and values of the self-styled elite institution” (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/23265507.2016.1164616). This places huge pressures on students but also, lower SES students are still faced with economic difficulties while on campus, and saddled with student debt years after they graduate (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/02/03/student-loan-debt-statistics/#5d44caa6281f). While much remains to be done on the student debt front (the 2020 statistic states debts exceeding $1.6 trillion – this is still a HUGE failure of traditional higher ed), colleges and universities have started new initiatives to help lower SES students deal with the unexpected costs of college during their years on campus. Emergency or “gap” fund programs (loans that don’t have to be repaid) have started popping up in schools across the US (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/education/learning/scholarships-students-financial-aid.html). When a student needs to return home for a family emergency, or if they’re not equipped to deal with cold winters, these programs offer financial resources to make sure students have what they need. I think this is one way that (some) colleges or universities are understanding that the cost of tuition, room and board isn’t the only cost associated with college. There’s the added difficulty of working multiple jobs, juggling work with co-curricular activities and then of course, the demands of the actual student part of being a student, etc. This is not going to change the entire structure of inequality based on SES at colleges and universities, but I see this as one small success, and it offers a bit of hope.