Mapped
BY ISABELLA SOTO
Northwestern students navigate financial gaps through community.
CANADA GOOSE.
Out
After Northwestern” alumni mixer. Instead of deciding to focus solely on financial aid and on income, SES and Quest scholars are intentionally shifting conversations in a broader and more nuanced direction by concentrating on financial wellness and financial literacy on campus. “So many of the aspects of financial ix small groups of students formed a aid and your financial wellness are not just, circle on the floor of Parkes Hall, all ‘Do I have enough money in my pocket?’” outfitted with a crisp white sheet of butcher says Steffany Bahamon, outgoing president of paper and colored markers. Each group was NU’s QSN. “It’s how you perceive yourself and assigned a particular socioeconomic class, how you perceive your relation to the general and groups were supposed to think of labels, Northwestern society.” assumptions, attitudes and challenges for While Northwestern proudly touts needeach socioeconomic group. While quiet blind admissions, its policy doesn’t necessarily at first, perhaps not wanting to jump to mean once students are at NU their experience rash assumptions, the air grew less tense will be need-blind. Some of the events that as students began to reflect on what these define the “True Northwestern Experience” class designations meant to them. Words are often inaccessible to low-income or firstslowly crept onto the generation students, pages, starting at the edges leaving them feeling like then becoming a collage they aren’t getting the of perceptions of class, promises of Northwestern income and wealth among that grace the covers of Northwestern students. brochures and booklets Money Matters, a sent to eager-eyed weeklong event organized freshmen. Even seemingly by the Northwestern innocuous “college” QuestBridge Scholars activities like frequent Network (QSN) and the CTA trips into the city The percentage Student Enrichment Services and student group profit of Northwestern (SES) office, began in 2014 shares involve spending students whose and returned this quarter. money – and that money family income It gives students a space to adds up. falls within the discuss their relationships “There’s always been top fifth. with identity, class and a problem with that income, as well as the privilege This includes families that high, really really high make over $110,00 per year. and wealth that permeates fundraising stuff,” says The Upshot, a subsection of Northwestern culture. Events Stephanie Uriostegui, cothe New York Times, reports included a discussion on service chair of NU’s QSN. that the median family class, a faculty panel on income of a student at “A lot of people hype it up, resilience and a “Life Northwestern is $171,200. especially during Wildcat
UPPER-MIDDLE CLASS. EXTENDED VACATIONS. “It feels like everyone else can go to dinners after class or abroad for spring break, and it kind of feels like you’re the only one kind of suffering and pushing through.” — Sharitza Rivera, assistant director of Student Enrichment Services
S
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMMA KUMER
54 | NORTHBYNORTHWESTERN.COM
