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COMBO: Wealth divides undergraduate community
Published: Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
For the full PDF of the COMBO survey results, click here.
The results of the Committee on Background and Opportunity (COMBO) survey, which were not made public to the University community until now, indicate that there are dramatic differences in ...
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This study is plagued by poor experimental technique. Having student self-identify is one - people with higher self-esteem will tend to put themselves as higher-class than they actually are, skewing many results. With at 30% response rate, there will also be massive sample bias.
It's also unfortunate that the study asked so many questions that are both boring and "leading," when so many more interesting questions could have been asked. For example, does GPA correlate with social class? What about major? (My guess - yes to GPA, both from self-esteem errors as above and because students from poor backgrounds often get an admissions boost. Rich kids go into sexy but unlucrative majors like journalism(!) and art, while most ibankers and almost all premeds are solidly middle-class.)
Is it really such a surprise that people with more money are happier?
Ok, so the eating clubs do lead to a little bit of segregation based on class or personal interests. How can we fix this without killing the eating club system, as Tilghman's administration seems to slowly be doing. The eating clubs are a substantial asset to Princeton's social community - compared to the boring and even more socially fragmented social scene at other schools [made up mostly of frat parties, room parties, and bars], the eating clubs are absolutely a friendly, open, exciting delight. Let's keep it this way.
The reason why the study didn't publish results for a cross tab between race/socio-economic background and academic performance is quite clear. It would puncture a gaping hole in the University's cognitive dissonance re: Affirmative Action or the discriminatory quota system
What's the difference between sign-in and bicker?
I want to know how one can maintain an upper-middle class lifestyle on less than $25,000 dollars a year, as a few respondents claim to.
i'd also like to know why someone who's family makes over a million dollars a year wouldn't say they were upper class
Yeah, the survey may have some flaws, but it's still pretty damning for the university.
The flaws are not minor.
Doesn't the University's admissions policy implicitly, if not explicitly, include diversity quotas? Doesn't diversity imply difference? Isn't the mantra of the multicultural agenda to celebrate diversity?
And then there is this little gem from the article:
“The COMBO survey shows that Princeton still has a long way to go to equalize the undergraduate experience,” USG president Josh Weinstein ’09 said in an e-mail. “Inequalities therein represent a challenge for our entire community.”
Apparently, everyone should have the same experience, and there is to be no differences among the students. That's quite a pretzel twist of logic. How/why do students end up with this reasoning? It's straight out communism. Seems no one studies history.
And yes, the experimental technique should cause the results to be dismissed/ignored.