“Why are you coming up to us when you know that either we can’t afford that or we just would never pay that?”

Hold a Conversation

Can you imagine leading a conversation about this story? Where? With whom? What kinds of questions would you pose? (See How to use the questions for reflection for one approach.) Please email your questions to us or post them in the comment box for our consideration. If you use them in an actual discussion, let us know how the conversation went.

Transcript for Naive in the Comments They Make

I would definitely say there’s been a lot of moments where I felt I didn’t belong, but the one issue I guess that those… that it centers on is probably, you know, the money. A lot of students here, because this is a private school and it is very expensive to go here, they come from families with money, you know, that are pretty wealthy. And I, however, did not; I’m here on a scholarship and grants and a lot of financial aid.

I don’t want to say that they’re spoiled, but they’re very naive in some of the comments that they make. They can come up to some of me and my friends, bragging about a $400 pair of shoes that they got. The first thoughts in my mind are: why are you coming up to us when you know that we either can’t afford that or we just would never pay that for something like a pair of shoes? And that’s why I say a lot of times they make naive comments, and sometimes they just need to, you know, realize that if you’re around your own group of friends that, you know, are just like you when it comes to spending money, or when it comes to just money period, you know, something like that would be a better comment to make around them.

Well, changes I would like to see here in Valpo, I guess, to bring the whole campus together and the community together more would be, I mean, right now I see them trying to make more cultural diversity here, and I see that Valpo puts a lot of emphasis on that, which, you know, if that effort’s already being done, only time can tell how well that’s going to keep doing in the future, but I definitely would like to see more diversity, you know, economically. Just because I am very aware that this is a private school, and it is very expensive for somebody who might have lived a very hard life financially to afford to come here, but I would hope that in the future instead of raising our tuition, Valpo would become, you know, a much more affordable, would have a much more affordable price tag on it that somebody, somebody’s who gone through a really rough life financially could afford to come here and share some of their experiences maybe. You know, they wouldn’t have to feel like me kind of coming from somebody who wasn’t a rich kid from the beginning, you know, would feel more open being around here, wouldn’t feel left out.