on privilege and choice

Walking to campus early this morning, I passed one spectacular lilac after another, the sun touching only the topmost blossoms.  Spring, the end of the semester, the lilacs, which I used to think of as upside-down wisteria, reminded me of a conversation I had one evening twenty years ago, next to the parking lot on the campus where I did my graduate work — under a most glorious ancient wisteria.

It was late, after class, dark, and a fellow student was escorting me to my car. As we walked, I learned that he had left his law practice to earn a degree in theology.  We talked about college, education, career choices.  His children were in high school; my son was a toddler.  His oldest had acceptance letters rolling in and was about to make a decision, and the others were gearing up to begin the search and application process.  

As we chatted, it hit me for the first time that eventually I would be the parent of a child looking at colleges.  (I adjusted to enormity of parental responsibility by degrees, in a series of ohmygoodness moments.)  But I was also still close to my own undergraduate years, at a school where I had never quite felt like I belonged.  So I was thinking out loud when I said something along the lines of, "Oh!  This is an exciting time for you and your children, choosing a college, finding the right place, exploring possibilities...!"

He interrupted me, brusquely, and said, exactly: "It doesn't matter where they go to college.  I think of college as just a place to keep them safe between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two."

Well!  Knock me over with a feather!

When I have shared this story with friends, they have rightly expressed indignation.  His is a very privileged position, and college is much more than a "safe place" for many, if not most, students.

What occurred to me, finally, all these years later, is that his children were likely choosing between equally appealing options, and that cost would not be the huge burden that it was then and continues to be for, again, many, many students.

This, I think, is part of what irked me so in my conversation with the dean on campus here, a cascade of misunderstanding and confusion, culminating in his exclamation, about my son's college: "Well, he chose it!"

I realize that whatever the dean's deal was, it really had nothing to do with me.  I get that.  But then I learned, by accident, a week ago, that the dean happens to earn a salary that is ten times the income I typically generate in a year.  Ten times.

I am hoping there was an error there, because knowing that number bothers me.  Although, the shift from a vague "more than I earn" to a specific dollar amount did help me to realize why I felt so defensive with him.  But, you know, whether that salary is correct does not really matter — because really, the bottom line is that financial security means a different set of choices.  

My own son was accepted into wonderful schools, which ought to have meant wonderful choices.  But there was only one that was a viable choice, financially. So his "choice" was between that number-four-on-the-list college or no college.  Or a gap year and community college and a do-over on the whole process.  So, sure, he had a choice, but not between equally appealing opportunities — and adding to my Mom the Mom angst about the whole business was the fact that his number one choice school did some dirty dealings with their scholarship policy.  

College is a privilege, no doubt about it.  But privilege is slippery, messy; it is not something you do or do not have.  It comes in degrees. That he is in college at all is a result of hard, hard work, a series of happy accidents, dedication, planning that was both haphazard and unwittingly brilliant, and, yes, privilege. 

Last Christmas when he was home for the break, my son confided that he was actually glad that he wasn't going to his first choice school.  When he arrived on campus, he went in with the attitude that he would have to make the awesome happen.  He wondered if he had gone to that other school if he might not have expected the awesome to happen *to* him.

Again, with the feather thing!  

"He chose it!"

Darn straight.  He did.