“Only Rich Kids Get Scholarships” — Student Slams Colleges for Ignoring Children of Poor Parents

"Unpaid internships are the same bulls---"

Jun. 3 2024, Published 12:17 p.m. ET

A frustrated college student's invective against the injustice of scholarship applications has gone viral on Reddit.

"The reality of applying to scholarships," a text overlay in the video of a now-deleted TikToker named Adri's (@honeybunchesofgross) account reads. She records the video from the inner of her automotive where she shouts into the digital camera lens.

In the clip, she's wearing what appears to be a commencement gown. She units her telephone down and begins to vent her frustrations with the school scholarship utility process the place she says that only "rich kids" are those who're getting help with funding for his or her university education.

"I don't give two s---s if people call me bitter for saying this but let's talk about the fact that as a 2023–2024 graduate" — her voice breaks at this level within the video; she gesticulates with her arms, crying — "why I have applied to thousands of f------ scholarships but the only people who are getting the scholarships are the f------ rich people!"

Her voice cracks on the remaining part, highlighting the injustice she has skilled despite putting her hat within the ring for no fewer than 2,000 other potential scholarships — "The f------ rich people!" she shrieks ahead of continuing, "like your parents have money, your parents are doctors, they're f------ lawyers, they're f------ judges!"

She persevered to focus on just how unfair it used to be that young other folks whose parents are working financially safe and relatively high-paying jobs are managing to safe scholarships for themselves at universities: "And you got millions of f------ dollars to go to college while you have all of these lower-income people here looking at us like, what the f---?"

She punctuates her tirade with every other scream sooner than the video ultimately ends.

While some folks could have found Adri's expression of her anger off-putting, it seems that that there are statistics to back up her claims that the kids of other folks who come from higher-income households do disproportionately have the benefit of non-federal help university investment.

Nerd Wallet penned a 2020 article on this very phenomenon, and it appears to be based totally in a technique schools are adopting with the intention to draw in "affluent students"; as a result, "it's leaving those who need aid the most with fewer resources to afford college."

The outlet wrote: "Students in the highest 25 percent income range received a greater amount of non-federal financial aid ($11,300) on average compared with all other income levels, including those in the lowest 25 percent income range ($7,500), according to a 2019 report on non-federal aid by the National Center for Education Statistics."

From a university development point of view — this is sensible. Establishing relationships with rich families approach that there is a increased likelihood of the families of those scholars donating money to the university. So getting a rich type into their college with the trap of a scholarship can be a down fee for construction a courting with increased echelons of society.

However, this additionally signifies that hardworking and even accomplished students may also be left in the dust. Just from my own anecdotal revel in — my sister, who's a health care provider, used to be revealed in a large number of medical journals, graduated from Columbia University with some extent in epidemiology, and secured full-time employment as an analyst for Pfizer ahead of getting accepted into clinical school.

Her real-world accolades then again, didn't seem to amount for far at Rowan University even though we did not come from an affluent family — her requests for a scholarship and fiscal assistant had been denied and she had to take out personal loans. When she requested if she may just lengthen her enrollment in med school after being permitted for a yr so she may just get monetary savings at her high paying Pfizer activity, she used to be initially advised she may.

However, just weeks out before the semester, a rep from the college reneged in this offer and told her that if she sought after to wait med school, then she must sign up that very year. She uprooted her lifestyles in Manhattan to visit school in South Jersey as she at all times dreamed of becoming a physician.

And regardless of representing the university at other meetings, she could not help but realize that students who arrived on campus in luxurious automobiles, while she walked to university, gained scholarships — and, like Adri's gripes, my sister would additionally speak about how their oldsters had been additionally either docs, or lawyers who specialised in global law.

One Redditor who responded to the put up urged that this discrepancy doesn't exist solely because schools are attempting to entice in the children of rich oldsters because faculties need to create a more "exclusive" surroundings, but moderately because higher-income families can foster environments that allow scholars to excel.

"I remember reading somewhere that a huge part of the disparity in scholarship funds comes from the fact that low income families tend to have parents with lower educational attainment relative to wealthier families, who often have parents that are more familiar with the application process and have a greater ability to help their children with applying."

They persisted: "On top of that, many scholarships require extracurriculars that have a large intersection with class — it's difficult for someone in a low income household to have sports and volunteer work under their belt when they have to work a job after school to help make ends meet. I certainly didn't have any extracurriculars after high school for that exact reason."

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