Etcetera

Minority on Campus: UM Students Talk About 'Coming Out As Poor'

January 29, 2015, 9:07 PM

Michigan Radio shares frank talk from three University of Michigan students about being part of a minority group that has nothing to do with race.,

They are outsider in the financial sense.

Producer-reporter Jennifer Guerra, a UM graduate, asks Danielle Boshers, Anna Garcia and Chris Reynolds "what it's like to be the first person in your family to go, not only to college, but to an elite university like U of M." The interviews are part of a foundation-supported State of Opportunity project.

Garcia feels like she has to “out” herself as poor all the time, the journalist reports.

Chris Reynolds, an aerospace engineering junior from Sellersville, Pa., tells about discomfort over two frequent questions:"What do your parents do?" and "Where did they go to college?"

His answers seemed to make people uncomfortable. His parents didn't go to college. His mom is a housekeeper, his dad's unemployed. . . .

"From there," says Reynolds, "where does the conversation go? We've been two minutes into our conversation and there’s nothing to relate." . . .

Students like Chris Reynolds are in the minority. University of Michigan officials don’t have exact numbers, but they estimate there are roughly 3,000 students on campus that are first-generation students, many of whom are low-income. . . . Getting into college is just the first of many hurdles. . . .

"Just to have someone from the university come up and say 'you belong here,' and 'we’re so excited to have you here,' " says Reynolds, "that would have changed everything for me."


 

Here's some of what the other two undergraduates tell the broadcaster:

 Anna Garcia: "I think the university is aware that there are many low-income students here, but I don't think they realize how uncomfortable we are. . . . I know of many students who have left after their freshmen year because they just felt they couldn’t find their place on campus. My whole first semester I thought of transferring."

 Danielle Boshers of Battle Creek: "My roommate and I, we were from completely different worlds. She was very wealthy and everyone in her family had gone to Michigan. It's just hard to connect to students who come from so much and who have so much, and don't understand where we as First Gens come from. . . .

"I'm sitting in my [geology] class and everyone's like, yeah, I went to Europe this summer and saw this mountain and that mountain . . . and I'm like, I went home and worked full-time at a gas station."

Garcia credits a student support group, First-Generation College Students @ Michigan, with helping her feel less alone. Its Facebook page has 226 members. 

Michigan Radio's special report is part of the State of Opportunity series by Guerra and two colleagues that's backed by a $995,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. "The goal is to expose the barriers children of low income families in Michigan face in achieving success," says a description

-- Alan Stamm


Read more:  Michigan Radio


Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day