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Poverty As a Cycle, Not A State

By Shuja Khan posted 10-01-2024 04:48 PM

  

Golden State Warrior tickets are notoriously expensive, even for the Bay Area. So, when a teacher at the ultra-expensive independent school where I worked saw one of his students at a game, it wasn’t surprising. Our families are the ones who can afford to go. That the student was there to celebrate a birthday and had bought tickets for a bunch of friends also was not surprising. However, this teacher was on the admissions staff and therefore privy to information about aid. The very next morning, he was in my office to complain. How could this student afford all these tickets and then also qualify for a “gargantuan” aid package?

Most people when they hear this story have a visceral reaction to that teacher. It’s easy to get mad. The reality though is complicated. The teacher is involved. He cares. Every year, he sees the students for whom we can’t provide aid. He sees how thinly our budget is spread, how much each dollar matters. His question comes from a place of concern. It also speaks to, I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding about poverty and need.

Paul Ryan at a fundraiser in 2014: “The best way to turn from a vicious cycle of despair and learned helplessness to a virtuous cycle of hope and flourishing is by embracing the attributes of friendship, accountability and love.” Anytime you can shoehorn love and friendship into a quote about poverty, how can you not go for it? Ryan’s words are nice, I guess, but the sentiment is at best misguided and at worst idiotic. For anyone that has ever experienced poverty, they ring incredibly hollow.

I’m not sure if I grew up poor or not. I went to public school in Queens, and I feel like I was the same as everyone else. Where you live and who you grow up around has an impact on how you perceive reality. My kids go to an independent school. They believe they are poor even though they are not.

So what do I know? I know about eating donuts at the end of my mom’s pay cycle because of the high calorie to cost ratio. I know what free lunch tickets look like and the things that food stamps do and don’t buy. I know about waiting to get your car fixed because you can’t afford it right now and how much more it costs when you finally get to it. I know about people decrying bad choices like they’re the cause of poverty and not the result of it.

But what else do I know? My first and only time flying as a kid came on a trip to Pakistan when I was eight. We flew first class. For a while, I lived in a three-story, five-bedroom house. And then I spent years living in the basement apartment of that same house, three mattresses laid side-by-side on the floor of a single room.

My point here is that the experience of poverty for a lot of people is not a permanent state. It’s a cycle. When a family applies for aid, the story we see is a snapshot. Steadiness of finances is a privilege of the upper class. If you looked at the picture of me one year, you might see a dad with a high-salaried job. If you looked again, you might see that dad as an immigrant with a thick accent who never once got a promotion. Decades after landing his big job, there he sits making less money, not more. A third look and you might see him supporting his entire family back home. And maybe, as his salary declines, he develops a terrible gambling habit that sets him spiraling. Maybe he becomes a dad who comes and goes like the breeze.

That cycle doesn’t just exist for poor folks. It exists for any family that struggles to make ends meet. When our office looks at finances, we try to remain objective. We do what the rules tell us to do. But stories are complicated. Two families can have the same income and be in vastly different positions economically. Maybe one has the support of generations of wealth – parents, uncles, and aunts who help with things like down payments and college tuition. Maybe the other is the one asked to provide that support.

Why did we fly first class to Pakistan? Because I had an “uncle” who worked at the airline. Maybe it’s irritating to see a family on financial aid affording thousands of dollars on Warrior tickets. But we don’t know the full measure of their story and we never will.

At the end of the day, financial aid decisions will always be about trust. We look at a snapshot and then we work with families, listening for subtlety and trusting in the things they tell us. If we can’t be flexible, if all we can do is abide by some rules that we made up, then we’re never going to be able to fully support our families.


Shuja Khan

Shuja Khan
Director of Enrollment Management
Rowland Hall

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