As a current graduate student at one of the top four, a couple things to consider are 1. Total investment per student, 2. Age of university, 3. Amount of research.

For undergrads at my school, basically no low income students have to take loans because the financial aid is very, very generous. When I was an undergrad here (grew up in poverty) I had a living stipend when I wasn't in the dorms. My university is also among the oldest in the country, and time for the endowment to grow and compound is relevant of course. And my university has a number of large and highly productive graduate schools associated with it, not sure if the student numbers are only undergrads or all students. They also have a bunch of community programs and stuff, for the city and whatnot, so there's a lot going on here. And I know for my university at least, we are pretty physically constrained in terms of literally housing undergraduates. Couldn't admit a ton more if they wanted to, and even then the last few classes have been record sizes.

I just wanted to point this all out because people often see numbers like this and freak out that certain universities have "too much" money. Even people at these universities, haha. But the thing is that the point of the massive endowments are that you aren't spending it. Returns on that endowment are what allow for the economically sustainable development of the campus and help fund the huge amounts of academic work that come out of these institutions. They're spending a lot each year. A bit different from the issue of stupidly wealthy individuals hoarding money to grow their net worth only.

I just wish the deadline wasn't so set in stone. I don't have much in terms of undergrad loans since I did the community college+work+ applying to a fuckton of scholarships thing. But I did qualify for Pell. It took me 5 years to get my degree and I missed out on some good opportunities but I avoided loans. I started graduate school and had to take a lot of loans, but none of them are eligible for forgiveness.

It sucks because if I had just gone straight to a four year school, I would have started grad school a year ago and those loans would be eligible. Instead I'm seeing my peers who were less careful get forgiveness and I get nothing.

I'm glad people are getting help but it's a bummer playing the rent or groceries game now so I can take out 15k next year instead of 20.

I've been seeing some different flowers since early Feb.

Yeah, I know. It's a bit of a hike and I don't drive though.

I don't get out much :)

I have someone who helps out sometimes but it's complicated. Would rather just do it legally.

That's good to hear!

I get wanting to be sure that the scene is equitable and not immediately taken over by chains or something but AFAIK permits have been given out for awhile, just silly how long it takes after that.

Here's hoping I'll smoke some legal bud in 2024 😩

Good to know! I need something to open in my city for transportation reasons, but the time frame should be similar. Thank you.

Victimized but got away from it. It is exceedingly difficult to "escape" poverty and the culture that goes with it when there isnt another place accepting you. Immigrants here typically have a very different support network than some poor kid in the bad part of town, who is born here into the systems (or legacies of the systems) that have kept them down. Even if that kid has a great mindset and works hard, the cards are stacked against them succeeding. I had a good friend I went to community college with, who had been arrested for breaking up a fight at school. His school had more cops than college councilors. He talked about this stuff a lot, because he was one of the only people from his class who went on to college and it upset him, obviously.

And what does success look like for someone like that? Leaving their family and neighborhood behind? Essentially becoming an immigrant in their own country? It's complicated. That's what a lot of successful people end up doing, because otherwise, they can't be very successful, because of the lack of investment into these communities means there's not much opportunity. These pioneers leaving continues to keep the investment out and the poverty concentrated. Its a cycle.

The mindset, if that's the issue, isn't going to easily change without serious investment into poor communities. The culture didn't develop out of nowhere.

Mindset which is heavily shaped by environment. Recent immigrants usually have strong enclaves/communities with a lot of social cohesion and support for each other. On the other hand, US and more local policies have been pretty directly responsible for the weakening of certain communities and reducing opportunities. Some of these policies, like redlining, were a long time ago but still have clear rippling effects on investment into these communities.

It's not "playing victim" when you and your recent ancestors were absolutely victimized by the society you live in.

Could be a lot of things happening. It could be something like, fewer Black people are accepted to university in the first place, which means that the work ethic and skill level or aspirations of many of those few who are accepted are equivalent to the top 25% (arbitrary number) of white candidates, for whom college is a given, so they are more likely to continue as a group.

It could be cultural. Both the feeling that you have to be a "good" representative of your race, and the fact that most of your peers of the same race feel the same way will push you to achieve more/avoid "failure". It could also be the reasons that they are choosing university in the first place. Social work, Healthcare, education, and so on are fields where getting a masters is often necessary. I don't know if there is specific pressure from parents of high performing Black students to go towards specific fields or not the way there is for Asian students to go into engineering or medicine.

It could also be that recently graduated Black students find themselves unable to find the same caliber of job opportunities as their white peers so have to continue education to find good jobs in their field.

Just spitballing.