COMBO: Wealth divides undergraduate community

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 how students of different socioeconomic backgrounds evaluate their social and academic experiences at the University.

The findings have been available to the USG and the University administration for nine months but were not posted on the USG website until late Tuesday night, after having been distributed to the USG Senate and The Daily Princetonian on Monday.

The survey asked respondents to identify their perceived socioeconomic level and ask questions regarding participants’ social activities and quality of life. Thirty percent of the student body participated in the May 2007 survey.

The results indicate that the likelihood of students to describe themselves as “always happy” decreases with their income level. Sixteen percent of upper-class students said they were “always happy,” compared to 7 percent of lower-class students. A majority of students from all backgrounds said they were “usually happy” at the University.

“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.”

It remains unclear why the report, which was compiled in December 2007, was not released until this week. Weinstein and USG communications director Andrew Malcolm ’09 declined to comment on this issue.

Weinstein, however, said in an e-mail to the ‘Prince’ editorial board last week that he was “not really sure why [COMBO] isn’t public.”

Former USG president Rob Biederman ’08, whose administration implemented the survey, also declined to comment.

In response to an inquiry by the ‘Prince’ editorial board, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt ’96 said in an e-mail last week that the provost’s office prepared a report to “simply facilitate opportunities for the USG to present its recommendations to University groups” and that the USG is “free to do with it what they will.”

“[B]ut we are not aware of the USG’s plans, if any, for the survey this year,” she added.

In an interview Tuesday, Vice President for Campus Life Janet Dickerson said that she didn’t know why the report itself was not released until now, explaining that the USG, not the administration, was in charge of the survey.

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Class of 2011 senator George Tsivin, however, explained that the full results were withheld from the student body until this week because of the sensitive nature of the findings.

The administration “didn’t want a news article saying, ‘Princeton is so inequitable,’ ” Tsivin explained. “Their biggest issue was a PR hit for admission and everything.”

Biederman had presented some recommendations based on the survey results, including creating a campus pub and putting more course books on reserve, at the April meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community.

President Tilghman did not respond to several requests for comment Tuesday. Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan also did not respond to requests for comment.

Former USG president Leslie-Bernard Joseph ’06 said in an e-mail that he believes “The USG has not done enough/ did not do enough” on the problem of social division on campus.

“I was disappointed during my time that the Undergraduate Life Council had always been reluctant to pursue the most radical and progressive solutions,” he said.

But he added that because administrators have longer tenures than those of campus leaders, “the onus has to be on them to provide long-term solutions.”

Weinstein said that the survey results will inform future USG policies.

“The administration, the USG, and other relative stakeholders will work together to tackle these issues head on,” he said, adding “we hope to use this data to devise actionable steps including for example working with Labyrinth and the administration to lower text book costs and expanding mentoring programs for the student body.”

Eating clubs and Greek life

One of the major findings of the survey was that respondents who classified themselves as lower and lower-middle class were more likely to feel uncomfortable than middle-, upper-middle- and upper-class students in a variety of social contexts, including at fraternity or sorority events, at eating clubs, on athletic teams, during extracurricular activities and at weekend parties in eating clubs and dorm rooms.

This gap was most dramatic for Greek organizations and parties at eating clubs.

“To be honest, my social upbringing aside, I didn’t grow up surrounded by people in J Crew Nantucket popped collars,” former Interclub Council (ICC) and Quadrangle Club president Jamal Motlagh ’06 said in an e-mail. “And if I were at a club surrounded by this I would feel somewhat out of place, and instead would want to look for one that had an environment that I was more used to.”

A majority of students who identified their family status during their senior year of high school as lower class or lower-middle class did not join eating clubs, while only 38 percent of self-identified middle-class students and 23 percent of upper- and upper-middle-class students did not join a club.

In total, 69 percent of those surveyed were club members.

Former ICC and Colonial Club president Marco Fossati-Bellani ’07 said in an e-mail that eating club costs were definitely a problem.

“By no means are [the clubs] inexpensive, so that already can create a segregation in their populations,” he said.

In November 2006 the University expanded its financial aid program to help cover the costs of dining at eating clubs for upperclassmen.

“We didn’t want any student to feel as if he or she couldn’t be part of the club experience because of finances,” Dickerson said, adding that the four-year residential college system was designed to minimize socioeconomic class differences between students.

Fossati-Bellani, however, explained that the push for “competitive on-campus social and dining options” is exacerbating the problem of social segregation.

“By adding options that seem to primarily interest lower- and middle-class students, the University has placed itself as a direct competitor to the sign-in clubs, but not the bicker clubs,” he said.

The survey results showed that, with the sole exception of those who identified themselves as upper class, respondents were less likely to join a bicker club than a sign-in club.

Fossati-Bellani said that “if this trend continues and the University provides more 4-year colleges, the University will find that the sign-in clubs will decrease in membership and potentially fold while the bicker clubs will remain unchanged. This will only further segregate the campus’ students based on socio-economic background.”

The survey also found that familiarity with campus social life correlated to socioeconomic background. About 60 percent of lower-class students surveyed said they had no knowledge of campus social life upon matriculation, compared to only 12 percent of upper-class students.

Dickerson said that pre-matriculation programs such as Outdoor Action and Community Action were part of the University’s attempt to “begin to level the playing field for students.”

She also pointed to the increased availability of information online. “I think students of all backgrounds get information as a result of Facebook and other social networking sites,” she said.