Critical Writing

Yen Lun Chan

Analytical Analysis Draft 1
Spring 2020

How Has the Educational System of Private Universities Has Associated with Social Class in

Massachusetts in 1980s~2009s?

Education places a crucial role that could affect the working system of the entire

society－ it cultivates every student as a potential power to assist the efficiency of society.

Simultaneously, both students and their parents would obtain satisfaction when they achieve

high achievement in their workplace. For example, they got hired with a high salary or in a

nice position in their work. Logically, if we follow this pattern, not only parents but also

students themselves eager to register in a high-quality school.; we can observe that those

high-ranking schools located in Massachusets are mostly private schools. As the matter of

fact, private universities or colleges in Massachusetts such as the Ivy League (Harvard, Yale,

Princeton, and Brown, etc) or other schools like MIT, Boston University, Tufts University or

more, these are all top and dream schools for most of the students that they all try to get in.

However, the tuition of those schools is extremely expensive compared with general schools;

in other words, students who study in those schools must have a solid and fundamental

economic condition from their families since they must assure that they got enough money to

afford the tuition and the daily-life spending.

According to “Private Colleges’ Pricing Experience in the Early 1990” written by

Donald, it pointed out that there are two main factors affect the current high tuition of private

universities by analyzing seven specific tasks. The first one is the general consumer inflation

during the 1980s－“This relationship changes in 1980s as college price increases surged

ahead of general consumer inflation, input price increases, and increases in family income.
(1997, p. 1). He applied several databases of the changes in the tuitions and revenue versus

family income of each student in private schools from the 1980s to 1997’s. We could observe

that the tuition and the revenue clearly increase with the family’s income growth over the

twenty years. The second factor is the matter of the quality competition between colleges and

colleges. He indicated that this is a prominent strategy that offers students more services and

amenities, as a result of which colleges cost surged. (Donald, 1997, p. 2). We could

understand that the colleges had increased the tuition since they proactively wanted to create

a more appropriate and comfortable space, courses, and facilities for students.

In “When the Best Is Not Good Enough” written by Cohan and Paula, they mentioned a

chart of the needy versus non-needy of financial aids during freshmen every year from

several private colleges in Massachusetts, and is presented that more than half of the students

among freshmen belong to the non-needy party. In addition, the author further provided data

that showed these non-needy students also could afford their entertainment spending.

Therefore we could refer that more than half of the college students not only could afford the

tuition but also they still have enough savings to spend on their leisure time such us buying

drinks, shopping, or going on trips during breaks.

Among the previous paragraphs, they reflected that the students’ economic background,

which is their social class, do have an ineligible connection with the private colleges’ tuition

since Donald, Cohan, and Paula have all noted the background economy of the specific era

cause a growth of family outcome; it indirectly affected the private universities’ tuition that

gradually increased too. Nevertheless, in “The Privilege of Ease: Social Class and Campus

Life at Highly, Selective, Private universities ” published by Nathan .D Martin, he noticed,

“student from wealthy and well-connected families enjoy an advantage during the admissions

process at highly selective colleges and universities; this advantage extends from the use of
private tutors and educational consultants to policies favoring legacies and students from

families who can be expected to make substantial financial contributions” (2012, p. 2).

We could realize from the article that the social class among those private universities is

generally regarded as the upper class.