Jon Fansmith [00:00:03] Hello and welcome to dotEDU, the higher education podcast from the American Council on Education. I'm Jon Fansmith in government relations here at ACE. And I'm joined by my co-host Lorelle Espinosa.
Jon Fansmith [00:00:15] Hey Lorelle.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:00:16] Hey.
Jon Fansmith [00:00:16] How are you doing today?
Lorelle Espinosa [00:00:17] Doing good, thanks.
Jon Fansmith [00:00:18] Great. And I think we should be doing a whole lot better in a little bit because we are joined today by a pretty amazing guest that I'm really looking forward to our conversation with Tony Jack who is a professor of education at Harvard University and author of the recently published book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Poor Students. Welcome, Tony. Thanks for joining us today.
Tony Jack [00:00:39] Thank you all for having me.
Jon Fansmith [00:00:40] So I teased a little bit. You have a book that's relatively recently out. I think February, it was released?
Tony Jack [00:00:47] Yes.
Jon Fansmith [00:00:48] And you're in the New York Times magazine section yesterday. Both the book and the piece in The New York Times focus on your work as an academic researcher. We know from our conversations with you, a lot of your work is driven in large part by your own personal experiences. I'm curious, can you just give us and our listeners a little bit of a background into yourself and your work and how your own personal experiences influenced your work?
Tony Jack [00:01:12] Yes, thank you for allowing me to start there. I always begin by saying I am a first-generation college student. I start with that social and biographical fact because so much of what I do and who I am stems from that. I am, like I said, the first person of my family to go to college, but my path to Amherst College, which is where I went as an undergrad, took a different route in many ways. I'm a Head Start kid, born and raised in the Coconut Grove is part of Miami and I went to public school my entire life except for my senior year of high school. I had a football coach who preferred athlete students to student athletes. And I was you know the--.
Jon Fansmith [00:01:59] Sort of an unfortunate trend, right?
Tony Jack [00:02:01] Yeah, yeah. And I was that geeky, nerdy kid who loved to watch cartoons and read and was perfectly comfortable in my identity as that person. And so in my junior year, I actually switched high schools because he kicked me off the team and I ended up going to Gulliver Prep which is a private school in Miami. Now my mom was a security guard. My brother is a janitor. So money wasn't flowing in the house and, towards the end of the football season/beginning of the spring, an Amherst College football coach called my coach and asked "Do you have a student who can make it past our admissions test this year?" And the football coach said, "You know what? We have a guy this year. I think you'll like him." And that's how I got to Amherst College. So I took my first flight to actually visit Amherst College. The first time I ever stepped foot on a plane and I fell in love with the place. It was gorgeous. I fell in love with what I was learning about a liberal arts education. Really just was my first real campus visit. I fell in love. When I, come convocation, started meeting my peers, I thought I was the only poor black kid around because everybody was talking about private jets, studying abroad, going to people's second homes, courtside seats to basketball games, season tickets to football games, and boxes--not the cheap, nosebleed seats, right?
Jon Fansmith [00:03:36] Standing room only.
Tony Jack [00:03:37] Yeah, right. But then they said, "Oh, yeah. My mom works as a janitor at this building." Or, "I live with my grandparents because both my parents were substance abusers and they left me." And I realized that the experiences that they were talking about were very similar to my own. Once I got to Gulliver. They got access to the academic and social experiences of the top 1 percent because they also got a scholarship to Andover, Exeter, St. Paul, Choate, Hockaday, Chicagoland, like these very, very elite--
Lorelle Espinosa [00:04:20] All prestigious high schools in our country.
Tony Jack [00:04:20] --Boarding and preparatory high schools. And so it turns out that my detour through Gulliver was a well-established on-ramp to elite colleges because of programs like Prep for Prep, A Better Chance, TEAK, and the like. So, it was a really, really important experience for me to have that at Amherst because what I didn't know is that actually set the foundation for my entire research agenda now is trying to understand the diversity among lower-income students because the literature and school officials treated all first-generation college students the same and ignore that that divergent trajectories to college.
Jon Fansmith [00:05:17] And the Privileged Poor goes deeper into this and you had, I think, a really interesting process of research for that. Can you talk just a little bit about...you found this area of focus, obviously which has great resonance in your personal life, how did you pursue that as an academic study?
Tony Jack [00:05:38] You know I...I'm a qualitative researcher and I believe in the power not just of stories but just the power of narratives as a whole. Letting people tell their own story and letting people give sense of their beginning, their middle, their end. And once I started interviewing students and let them tell their own story, I was able to observe that what I saw at Amherst again was not an anomaly but something that I was able to observe across generations of students but also across universities. And so privileged poor and doubly disadvantaged, the two terms that I came up with, privilege poor meaning the students who...lower-income students who attended these private day- and boarding high schools and the doubly disadvantaged, those low-income students who attended local, typically distressed public schools, I began to see this by bimodal distribution. And now I understand that privileged poor and doubly disadvantaged are loaded terms and my choice in terms is purposeful. I was tired of the downplaying on how prolonged exposure to neighborhood and school inequalities, these structural inequalities, affect the life chances and the mobility prospects of lower-income, especially lower-income black and Latinx youth. And so privileged poor and doubly disadvantaged is also my attempt to move away from studying individual differences between a student whose parents went to college and a student whose parents did not to actually bring in conversation about those structural inequalities, because the privileged poor brings up this interesting kind of oxymoronic, this kind of contradictory thing in your mind, right? How can someone be both privileged and poor? And that is exactly the question I want someone to engage with when they look at the title and realize I'm talking about a group of people. How they are economically disadvantaged, but they have the social and academic experience of the top 1 percent. Who really experiences culture shock and isolation on the social side of things in college is not just those from low-income backgrounds. It's those from lower- income backgrounds who have not had access to the hidden curriculum that permeates higher education. When we think of lower-income black and latinx youth, we think of a lower-income student whose parents did not go to school, who lives in a disadvantaged neighborhood, and who attends a school that mirrors those demographic and social factors, right? Typically distressed, overcrowded, underfunded high schools. That's generally true, but my research was the first to show that, on average, one half of lower-income black students at elite colleges and, on average, one third of lower-income Latinx students at elite colleges are actually the products of private high schools.
Jon Fansmith [00:08:49] That's really remarkable.
Tony Jack [00:08:49] And not just any private high school, we're not talking about the the inner city Catholic high school that's around the corner that's not much different from the public school that's down the street. We're talking about schools that cost, at times, more per year than most colleges. We're talking about schools--
Jon Fansmith [00:09:12] Schools that very much mirror the institute...the elite colleges they're going to.
Tony Jack [00:09:15] Yes, right.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:09:16] Right. And which they go to on scholarship. They've full support to be there because they have need-based financial aid to go there.
Tony Jack [00:09:25] Exactly. I start with the price because that's, to me, the tip of the iceberg. What really matters about going to these schools and it...But it puts you in a context of how different they are. What really matters is what happens in the everyday. It is not only who you are educated by, but it's who you are educated alongside. And so privileged poor, again, lower-income students who attend boarding day and preparatory high schools almost exclusively on scholarship, whether need-based or athletic because there are some that combine the two, are the privileged poor. The doubly disadvantage are those students who are equally economically poor but who do not attend private schools who tend to go to local, typically distressed public schools. And, again, the difference is not to highlight oh, "one group is better than the other," or, one group is more deserving of admission than the other," it's to highlight the ways in which segregation, poverty, racial exclusion manifest themselves in the lives of today's youth.
Jon Fansmith [00:10:40] And I think that's really interesting too because your research does such a great job of showing where that distinction manifests when these students get to a college campus. It also demonstrates some areas where there's common barriers to low-income students succeeding on campus. Can you just tell us a little bit more about, through your interviews, through your research, the obstacles low-income students face and sort of how the privileged poor and the doubly disadvantaged might share similarities or have real distinct differences in how they respond to those challenges?
Tony Jack [00:11:14] The privileged poor have a leg up in understanding...in navigating the hidden curriculum. And by hidden curriculum, again, it's that system of unwritten rules and unsaid expectations that permeate all institutions of higher education. One thing that always comes to mind when thinking about the hidden curriculum is think about who knows what office hours are from the moment they step on campus, who feels comfortable going to office hours, and who knows that they even should. Because we know that office hours are more than just about getting academic help. It's about the possibility of developing relationships that then lead to mentorships that then lead to a whole host of outcomes: letters of recommendation, introductions, and the like.
Jon Fansmith [00:12:02] And that really struck me, actually, that there were students who would hear the term office hours and think not what I think we in higher ed tend to commonly understand that to mean, but in fact sort of the opposite, right?
Tony Jack [00:12:16] Yes. So I had a dean from Dean College here in Massachusetts reached out to me to ask like how can she foster academic engagement among her lower-income students. And I suggested something that I have been...I'm on this national campaign to get faculty members to define office hours, because whatever we say office hours in class, we always say when they are, we never say what they are. And so I told her that we should define it. I got an email back from her, she said, "You know what? I'm so glad..." This resonated with her, because what she said is, when she finally asked her students why they did not come to her for office hours, they told her what you said, that, "Your office hours from 2:00 to 4:00. We thought that was your time to do your work undisturbed." Something was lost in translation that had nothing to do with English proficiency, but rather the very coded language that we use in higher education. That because we are so accustom, many of us, to teaching a student with a certain level of exposure to college life, either through parents or through some kind of contact, we don't take the time to question what we take for granted. Now the privileged poor do have a leg up because they'd had four to six years of being trained to think about help-seeking differently. They think about help-seeking as a way to get ahead. They've been drilled by their teachers and headmasters and counselors and mental health counselors like this. Private schools have way more layers of support than public schools. So I don't want to...I would love to talk about the fact that sometimes we should not be talking about the difference between a good public and a bad public but the gulf between public and private in America and the resource differences. But the double disadvantaged, however, don't have that. They still have the lessons that you should treat authority with deference and distance.
Jon Fansmith [00:14:24] I was just gonna say there's some examples in the book where...I mean just very heartbreaking about students who were having mental health issues and, you know, the privileged poor they'd reach out their faculty and say, "Look, I'm having a problem. I need extra time to do this." They'd reach out to a counselor, a resident advisor. The doubly disadvantaged students would go into a shell. They would withdraw and they would not seek out those resources and just, sort of, a really captivating thing.
Tony Jack [00:14:52] They would shoulder the burden. They thought that, "It was my burden to bear," because, also for them, they would use their parents as a yardstick for measuring adversity like, "Oh my God, I'm feeling bad. I'm feeling sad because I'm here. What right do I have to feel bad? And I have three meals a day. I have more room and board. I have heat and my parents are at home working two jobs each and coming home tired and broken at the end of the day. What right do I have to complain?" Not knowing that that weight on them is something that someone else can help lift at least to build structures in place mentally for you to deal with it. So those are the instances where the privileged poor and the doubly disadvantaged have different experiences, but there are some trouble...problems and obstacles that no amount of cultural capital can combat. There are things that are universal for a poor student. And that is actually how I got interested professionally and as a scholar...as a moment of scholarly interest in food and security on college campuses, because... The number of schools that actually shut down during spring break and other times a year, it shocked some people. So of all the colleges in the country that have adopted no loan financial aid policies, so arguably those that are the most progressive when it comes to aid and access--.
Jon Fansmith [00:16:34] And have the greatest resources, too.
Tony Jack [00:16:36] And have the greatest resources. Only one in five keep their dining halls open during spring break without restriction. Now that's of the wealthiest, most "I do good" type of schools. Only one in five. There are many schools that would actually charge students a daily rate to stay on campus during these breaks. There are other...There's one school, that I wish I would've taken a screenshot, that actually changed the locks on the outside of the buildings to prevent entry for students to get in during breaks. There was one school that even said something to the effect of, "If you were...All so-and-so students leave campus for break. And if you are one of us, you would too. And it was just just a signalling of, if you are one of us and I was like, "Wow, if you can't afford to go. It's just like OK. If I was here, I mean--.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:17:41] That that you're not one of us.
Jon Fansmith [00:17:43] Right. It's a clear sign you're not us.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:17:45] But that's a problem, Tony, and you explore it in your book and in this article we referenced earlier, that the issue is that not everyone can afford to leave at break. And you talk about not being able to access food and go into some detail about how that affected you personally and how you saw it affect other students.
Tony Jack [00:18:04] Yes. And the thing is for me to show how prevalent food insecurity is at a place like Harvard, at a place like Yale, at a place like Princeton we are the wealthiest universities in the world. Just think about how prevalent it is at institutions with less money. Think about what...with fewer resources. Like that is the kind of...that's what I want to shine light on because in the conversation about food insecurity, we've been chasing the magic number and scholars have been saying like, "Oh my God, what is the magic number?" I won't be that person who says what percent of students in the country are food-insecure. I don't want to just talk about that number, the prevalence. I want to understand also its nature, because you can't food bank your way out of poverty. You can't food bank your way out of food insecurity. The actions that we take to combat food security must match the problem on these individual campuses. If you attend an Amherst or Harvard, a food bank or a food pantry is not as effective at combating this problem as it would be if you just extended the dining hall during breaks. Right? But at a school like Bunker Hill, at a school like Commonwealth University who have led the way really, I mean I think it's called the RAM room at VCU. I apologize if I get the name wrong, but they are one of the first and the strongest going, right? And so I'm trying to show both its prevalence and its nature so that when we actuall... In that policy we're not trying to basically cure every single thing with penicillin, we actually have more targeted outreach and more targeted policies for what we do. And one of the colleges that to me has done an absolutely amazing job and have done more with fewer resources than their peers has been Connecticut College. And one of the reasons why I highlight them in my work is because they were one of the schools that charge students a daily rate, but not only have they reversed that decision, they have gone to actually provide resources, to provide basic needs during those breaks, but also provide resources on those breaks so that those students can recharge in a new way. Smith College has reversed their decision. And I went to give a talk at Smith this past semester and the president announced and was like, "Well, we read the work and we realized that we were one of those schools. And so we said we can't be that. We can't be that school anymore." And so they have begun to reverse and more colleges are reaching out to say that they are starting to enact policies to reduce some of the inequalities on campus. Now, this is just one issue, but it's an important one because you can't function when you can't...when you don't have food to eat.
Jon Fansmith [00:21:14] And that reflects your point, too, about...you also feel not a part of the institution because so many students are having an experience you're denied. And not only are you denied that, you're facing food insecurity while everyone else is leaving for vacations and things like that.
Tony Jack [00:21:29] Still there is a social isolation that happens as well as the kind of distancing on campus that results in food insecurity. This tension between proclamation and practice. And the thing is, it's not just lower-income students who suffer from this problem. I mean, we forget that there are students on our campus who were in the foster care system. We forget that there are some students who know that home and harm are synonymous. These students are 18 to 22 year olds. Let's not think of them as a college students. Let's just think of them as individuals. What are the modal life experiences for 18 to 22 year old individuals who come from this environment? Because if we can begin to understand that we then understand what's happening to their families and friends back home so that we can be better able to serve and help them once they get on campus.
Jon Fansmith [00:22:29] And you've raised a lot of great questions here and it sort of seems like a good time to ask: so where are you going to be looking at next? I mean, I think we're getting a sense of a range of issues you'd like to address, but where do you think your work is going to take you going forward?
Tony Jack [00:22:45] So I am very much interested in help-seeking and hoping that we can understand ways to expand the definition of help for students, especially to combat the defensive nature, the defensive stance that lower-income students, especially the double disadvantaged have on it so they can get access to those resources: the mental health counselors, the understanding how to deal with trauma and things of that sort and that's one stem of my research, but where I'm actually very interested in going is again exploring this structural inequality on campus. I'm very much interested in understanding the world of work among undergraduates. And the reason why is because a lot of stuff that we talked about students make up for by working more hours, lower-income students than their peers, so they can help reduce some of the inequalities at home because again understanding what is the modal experience [of someone who's] 18-21. They're oftentimes sending money home or living at home to help pay the rent and doing different things like that.
Jon Fansmith [00:24:02] Even though most research shows the more you work, the less likely you are to complete, the less likely you are to do well in school. It's a burden and a challenge for students.
Tony Jack [00:24:10] And so we know those details quantitatively. I want to understand the nature of it. I want to understand how do students get their jobs, because it's one thing to work 10 hours as someone's research assistant and you feel comfortable reaching out, asking a professor, "Hey, do you need anyone to code data for you or to write code for you?"
Jon Fansmith [00:24:34] You need skills in the field, too.
Tony Jack [00:24:37] Right. Exactly. It's another thing to work 10 hours in janitorial services, which I highlight in the book, where you don't have much contact with anyone who can write you a letter of recommendation, who can help you through graduate school applications or anything like that. So I'm very much interested in understanding these hidden inequalities that are part of this larger tradition that we know, you work more it takes away time from school. But the decisions, because there are some students who decide to work certain jobs because it reminds them of home. It doesn't make them feel alienated. And so we don't want to discourage or look down upon someone because they want to do a certain type of work because of it keeps them grounded. We also want to make sure that we're not funneling students.
Jon Fansmith [00:25:31] Or dividing students on different tracks by the type of employee--
Tony Jack [00:25:35] Exactly. Because the question I have is, especially in the landscape of federal work study and how it is part of certain students' curriculum...certain students' package and the like...It is also very interesting how colleges are able to funnel a lot of students into manual labor jobs. And what does it mean to do manual labor in an institution that privileges the life of the mind and what kind of divides on campus does that create and also what kind of internal conversations does it inspire about one's own purpose, one's right to be on campus, and one's own mobility.
Jon Fansmith [00:26:11] And, as someone who works on federal policy around federal work study, let me just say I'm really looking forward to what you turned up in that area. I have a feeling it's an area where the research can help influence policy in beneficial ways. Tony, I can honestly say I feel like I could talk to you for another two hours and still not really scratch the surface of all the questions Lorelle and I have. This has really been a very engaging conversation but I want to be...I know you are speaking to members of the legislature, you're doing a whole variety of pretty amazing things today so, being respectful your time, I just want to cut the conversation off here. Thank you so much for coming on and speaking with us. The Privileged Poor is out. I purchased it through Amazon. I don't know if there's other places where people can find it that you'd want to mention?
Tony Jack [00:27:01] I mean I love people who support local bookstores and I also love people who just want to get the book quicker. So, whatever makes you, the purchaser, feel most comfortable. I love hearing people's thoughts about it and pushing me on questions because those questions make me better at answering questions about policy and practice. So, thank you all for having me. I really appreciate it and I look forward to future conversations.
Jon Fansmith [00:27:30] Great.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:27:30] Thank you, Tony.
Jon Fansmith [00:27:31] And just one last plug, if you are a college president or administrator, who we hope are listening to this podcast, do pick it up. It's a pretty amazing read, a pretty eye opening in terms of...I think every campus has lessons they can draw from it.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:27:45] Absolutely, no matter where you sit.
Jon Fansmith [00:27:47] Yeah, absolutely. So, thanks again Tony. We're going to take a little break and then Lorelle and I will be back.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:28:00] And we're back. How are you doing, Jon? That was a great conversation.
Jon Fansmith [00:28:04] That was a fantastic conversation. I am about 10 percent left in the book and now I got to go finish it. Send him some comments.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:28:12] Yeah. One thing that I wanted to ask him, but we didn't have time because we had such a rich discussion already, was just also about the capital that the students that he's talking about that they bring given what they've been through and the resiliency aspect. And there's a lot of conversation in higher ed about resiliency and the actual cultural capital that they bring from their own communities that enriches the lives of the other students in terms of background and experience and enriches--
Jon Fansmith [00:28:45] And he touched on cultural capital but not really in that context.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:28:48] No, more in the classical context of how it lacks a crossover.
Jon Fansmith [00:28:52] So we can send some joint comments. Do you want me to send it as soon as I finish the book?
Lorelle Espinosa [00:28:53] We'll send some joint comments. Yeah, as soon as you finish the book.
Jon Fansmith [00:28:55] I'm close.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:28:58] You're close, yeah. Well, actually, I mean good segue way because this is HBCU Week.
Jon Fansmith [00:29:03] It is.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:29:03] Which is a body of institutions that enrolls a large share of low-income students. It's not the elite always colleges that he's speaking to, but a group that really does serve our nation's African-American student population in a historical and contemporary way. And this is also a week that we're talking a lot about college affordability and namely what it means to move into jobs that are low-paying but high social value, like teaching and social work where we see African-Americans disproportionately, in some cases, represented.
Jon Fansmith [00:29:43] Sure.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:29:44] And yet we see this G.A.O. report out recently on Public Service Loan Forgiveness which was a little bit disappointing.
Jon Fansmith [00:29:54] I would say, in fact the GAO report, and for people aren't familiar the GAO's the General Accounting Office. I think I got that right. They sort of do analytical and research reports for the government. Usually these reports are very, very staid. I think there's a quote from the lead author that said, "It's extremely disheartening to see what we found." In GAO parlance, that's shocking that they would express that level. And the reason--
Lorelle Espinosa [00:30:22] Yeah, they're not usually super opinionated in those reports. They're very objective.
[00:30:26] Very objective, very dry, and the reason why is, this is actually about the Temporary Expanded Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which was a program created by Congress because the original Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program? 99% of the people who applied were rejected. And again, as Lorelle mentioned, these are people generally who have a fair amount of education because they're entering fields that require specialized education, like teaching...Master's degree, professional degrees like law degrees, business degrees, medical degrees and they choose to enter public service with the idea that 10 years later, their loans will be forgiven. It's essentially way for people to afford advanced education and go into public service. So the original program so far, according to the most recent data, 99% of the people who have applied have been rejected. Congress created this temporary expanded version to say, "Well there's all these problems with eligibility the original program had, we're going to widen the eligibility. We're going to make it easier for people and we're gonna put some money behind it." Well, the GAO found that 99% of the people who applied for the temporary expanded program also were rejected. You know, it is. It's shocking. The fact that you have a fix for a program that is as functionally ineffective as the program it's attempting to fix. And there's a lot of reasons why. A lot of these are frankly...some students or some borrowers, they're not in the right loan programs or they haven't made the appropriate number of payments or they don't have the right types of loans. But 71% of the people who are rejected were rejected because they hadn't applied to regular public service loan forgiveness before they applied to the temporary expanded one which, in fact, is a way of punishing people who are applying to the right program. If you weren't eligible for the original, you should apply for the regular. The idea that you would need to know that you have to apply to the original be rejected and then apply...that just doesn't make a lot of sense. So, of course this report has raised a lot of attention in Congress where, again, they've appropriated $700 million dollars to help borrowers. You know, very little that money only--
Lorelle Espinosa [00:32:31] They set that much aside. $700 aside and have spent $27 because they're not approving anyone.
Jon Fansmith [00:32:39] So, it's getting attention. Congress is obviously very displeased. And I think you add to a number of other issues that we've seen in servicing and the department's oversight of servicing and how they're handling student loans and it just adds to the chorus of problems in this area.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:32:55] Well talk about needing cultural capital to figure out these processes and the forms and who to ask and how to ask and where to push and starts to make it feel like somehow they're setting us up for failure here, setting these students up.
Jon Fansmith [00:33:08] And I think certainly there's a lot of feeling in Congress that that's exactly how it was designed, to set people up for failure.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:33:16] Well, I hope that that improves. Perhaps this attention and this a report, which do tend to provide--.
Jon Fansmith [00:33:22] They do raise the profile.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:33:24] Exactly. And so there's a lot of press on this. So we hope to see this turn around--
Jon Fansmith [00:33:30] Absolutely.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:33:31] In the future and better, again, meet the needs of the very people that we know go into work that has high social value. It's bad enough that they're not getting paid enough. They should at least get some cover from us as an economy and as a society.
Jon Fansmith [00:33:44] Get the benefit they were promised when they made these choices. Well, and we'll obviously keep our listeners posted, if you want more information about Tony Jack or about any of the issues we've discussed. You can find that on ACE's website. You can also find this podcast on our website at www.acenet.edu/podcast. You can also find the podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. And finally, you can e-mail us at podcast@acenet.edu to offer your feedback, suggestions. I would hope generous compliments to our performance. Certainly Lorelle and me--.
Lorelle Espinosa [00:34:27] Certainly mine.
Jon Fansmith [00:34:28] Maybe a little personal...Exactly. As usual. But, anyway, we thank everyone for listening and I hope you are looking forward to future episodes. Thanks and bye.