Yale Daily News

This article is bizarre. In my Yale experience, Machine City was a study space used by many; it was far from, as you state so oddly, the place where "the poor kids sat and drank their Coca-Colas." This article is full of similar mischaracterizations, overstatements, and strange turns of phrase, and it leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

I do, however, sympathize with your desire to have more socioeconomic "mixing." But let's face it: You chose to go to school in a city, where'd you have access to amenities, some of which are unaffordable on a student's budget. Yale may not be a complete "bubble," but it's pretty damn close. Rich and poor students live together in the dorms, and they DO eat together in the dining halls many nights, despite what you say. It's not like everyone goes out for every meal.

On a more fundamental level, I think your reasoning is circular. If Yale were to offer the dining amenities that you suggest, the cost of attending school would rise, creating a greater burden on those very students about whom you're concerned. In other words, if Yale upgraded its dining options, it would pass on those costs to the students you'd want to protect.

Moreover, I don't think we can complain that Yale doesn't pamper us enough. This school is as cushy as it gets, and this opinion seems to take that for granted. Being jealous of the more affluent students may be natural, but there really isn't much Yale can do about it.

If you wanted a school that was truly a bubble, where everyone lived on campus, ate in the dining hall together, and there were no fraternities, you could have gone to one. Those schools exist: they're small, they're in rural areas, and many of them are quite good.

Fantastic Op-ed! It is kind of assumed at Yale that "well, inequality is something that happens 'out there' in the world," but of course you are right that it happens under our noses on campus. In particular, the dining hall monopoly issue is an easily change-able one.

Seriously, I'm on financial aid and I snack in the Bass cafe sometimes... I just charge it to bursar or flex... It's not as if it's exclusively for non-aid students...

Despite the somewhat strange comment above, this is a good piece -- much more relevant than many others one reads on the op/ed pages. I guess Yale sometimes forgets class issues. So, thank you for bringing this up.

I also think the administration can take a very concrete step to help level the playing field. Though this article does not mention it, campus events -- shows, theatre productions, parties, even academic seminars! -- can cost a significant amount of money. And how much does it cost to go cheer on the Bulldogs? $30?

At several other colleges, the administration does not find it burdensome to subsidize campuswide events, sometimes to the point where they're free for all students. Yale administration should do the same, and YCC should lobby for it!

As an alum of a peer school, I was startled by this article. Why are you whining? I was the first-generation-in-college son of an unemployed man. I worked my way through Harvard and was on financial aid. Many of my friends took vacations in the spring. I stayed in the dorm to save money.

Big deal. Boo hoo.

It is an astonishing privilege to go to Yale, the financial aid is, starkly, rich alums financing promising young people in need. You want a travel allowance and a coffee subsidy on top of it?

I worked jobs throughout college to pay for snacks. Big deal.

Life has been good to me, because Harvard was good to me.

Quit whining. Do your homework, get a good job or go to a good grad school, and rake it in.

There is a life after Starbucks.

This article is incoherent and unnecessarily melodramatic. When I was an undergrad, I had a diverse socioeconomic group of friends, ranging from one whose single mother was an illegal immigrant maid, to one whose dad was high up on the Fortune 500. We all ate together, spent time together, had fun together, and, most importantly, learned from each others' various backgrounds and experiences. To suggest that a "diabolo mocha" that costs, at most, a couple dollars more at the new Bass Library than at Yorkside could somehow be the catalyst that begins to errode these Yale interactions between "rich" students and "poor" students is absolutely absurd.

Challenges are relative. What one may find difficult may be easy for another. A situation thought to be an unbearable hardship might just be someone else’s life.

Work hard and keep moving forward.

Interesting op-ed. I think that it is necessary for more discussion to take place about class issues at Yale. One area that would merit attention are those students who work up to 15, if not more, hours a week to take care of expenses. There are those students who study in Bass while eating the sandwiches which I think we can all agree are pricey, and those who forfeit studying at times to work. That sacrifice, which some students DO make, is one which should be unneccessary at a school with an endowment of our size.

Brilliant insight in this article. Yale has got to spend less time focusing on ethnic differences, start treating different ethnic groups on an equal footing, but look at the real material differences between students. Students clearly don't need to be funded through everything, but there should be an activities fund to which they can apply.

-from a Yale Alum '76

it's strange that a sophomore would be able to talk about what Machine City was like, when said student was never here when CCL was open before renovations.

This is well-written and I appreciate the fact that you wrote it.

It's also strange that he should use McDonald's as an example. There isn't a McDonald's anywhere near campus. The only national fast food chain we have around is Popeye's, and options for cheap food are abundant closer to campus.

Does the writer know any disadvantaged students who can't afford to eat in the Bass Cafe? If he did, it seems he wouldn't make such an elementary mistake. If he doesn't, it seems unnecessary to sound alarms about a hypothetical situation.

I agree with the Harvard student (perhaps because I come from similar circumstances?).

I don't want to live under a communist government, and certainly wouldn't want to attend a communist university. Undermining economic differences would create just such an environment. We do not all have equal economic resources! This is a GOOD THING. As Yale students, I think we can all agree that we are industrious enough to direct our efforts towards earning money if we so desire, and that those who are less able or less willing to so direct their efforts do not deserve the same income! Perhaps some are irked by the fact that students are benefiting from their parents' incomes without working for it themselves... strangely enough, though, in this country, one can spend and parcel out their income in (almost) any way they so choose. Again, I think this is a good thing... it rather saddens me that some of my fellow Elis disagree, just because they got a bit peckish and didn't remember to pack a sandwich from home.

This article is a lackluster attempt at class warfare. Try again.

"In recent weeks the “hot-place-to-be” Bass Library has looked rather like steerage class on the R.M.S. Titanic, but, in fact, it has the opposite effect."

Upon first reading, I had figured this sentence's lack of meaning to be the result of an editorial error. I must give credit to the author, however, as it appears that I was simply too hasty in missing his radical point:

The Dickensian urchins in Bass library hungrily slurping their chili hot chocolates (probably their only daily sustenance) may look to Mocatta's refined eye like despicable plebes, but these eyesores are in fact merely the richest kids that Yale has to offer. Who knows where the actual poor kids are (and how comparatively malformed and offensively clothed they may be) - perhaps they have followed Mocatta's advice and are crammed into the nearest McDonalds (three miles from campus), studying hopelessly off of grimy (probably tear-stained) photocopies, lamenting the cruel god that cursed them with an Ivy League education.

Everyone has to go home for winter break. The dorms are closed.

thanks for bringing this issue up. frederick does highlight some important points. as a person who is on financial aid, i can definitely relate to everything he says here.

The fact that this column is considered by some commenters to express a remotely radical idea is much greater evidence of class division than anything one could say. This isn't to say that the article is bad or that the author's intentions are anything but noble.

However, this article is saying from the top down what the bottom has been saying forever. Also, I did think the author lost some credibility in using the word "classless". In any case, the real problem is that people just don't notice that the lifestyles of others differ from their own. Noticing that expensive products shut out the people who can't afford them is nothing innovative. Also, if some "poor" kid is desperate to hang there, he can get his coffee somewhere else and just bring it in.

good article, well done for changing the prices in bass.

This article is a hack and a fraud and sounds very much like a poor attempt to continue the legacy of Das Kapital, although, in this case, the most weight it can pool is what kind of drinks people buy. I think it's a ridiculous idea, because the choice of drink does not necessarily reflect socioeconomic status - I know homeless people that manage to scrap enough funds to go Starbucks everyday! I also know one girl who is extremely loaded and refuses to buy any food or drink off campus.

The point here, like in real life, is that people's economic standing might not translate into what kind of drinks they buy.

Also, Starbucks and McDonald's are not part of the university - they are the real world, the way that the U.S. functions in its capitalistic economy. Is the author trying to eradicate capitalism?

Count me in the boo-hoo crowd. Worked in the dining halls, worked the reunions, worked on the cleaning crews, tooks lots of loans and LOTS of financial aid to get through Yale.

It never once occurred to me to WHINE about the "relativistic hermeneutical oppression of the classist hierarchy" or whatever claptrap y'all are spouting.

YOU ARE ALL AT FREAKIN' YALE--live with it.

Read Between the lines

This is obviously protesting the high prices. Maybe they should look into not charging such ridiculously high prices.

-- A poor kid

this article makes some interesting points, such as to make yale more diverse, socioeconomic status has to be factored in. at the same time, there seems to be too much reliance on "poor" versus "rich." interesting.