Social Class Voices: Student Stories from the University of Michigan Bicentennial

My Class Experience: A Tale of Not Knowing Where I Belong

Here I am, sitting on the porch of the villa that my friend’s aunt is renting, listening to the waves of the ocean as they crest onto the beach, enjoying the sun, and realizing how lucky I am to be spending my spring break somewhere other than in the cold, bitter winds currently blowing through Michigan where I live and go to school. This comes with privilege, privilege that I gained through my parents, but also through working four jobs while taking a full course load. What others call privilege, I call a combination of hard work and dedication that functions alongside privileges one is born into, whether monetary or as a characteristic of oneself that outwardly shows. I utilize the coexistence of privilege and hard work to see through the opportunities and experiences I want to have, but I also recognize that without my friend’s aunt giving us a place to stay while minimally contributing, I too would be stuck in Michigan like so many others who cannot afford to go away on spring break due to having to choose between somewhere warm or rent/groceries for the next two months. Most spring break excursions cost upward of $500 to go somewhere remotely warm and have a decent amount of activities and experiences to bring back and tell friends about. There are people who experience lower-class backgrounds than me but who are not afforded opportunities because they lack the privilege I unknowingly was given at birth. But with this privilege I had a birth that came at a cost which I would find out about in high school: bankruptcy from debts.

From a very young age, my parents never really talked about money, how bills or groceries were paid for, or where we stood in comparison to those around us. Looking at family pictures, I can tell we were loved and my parents did their best to give us a healthy and productive childhood. I know that from birth to the age of two and a half that myself, my parents, and eventually a younger brother, born when I was almost two, lived in a small two-bedroom apartment along U.S. Highway 127 in a rural area of Michigan. Our little apartment building was a 15-minute drive from the nearest city, St. Johns. The building sat on a decent amount of land, which my mom said was great for me to play in, with a small diner across the street, and surrounding farmland. A few miles further down the highway on one side, there was a cider mill and down the other there was a vast swamp area. From what my father tells me, he was at a lower-paying welding job and my mom had just gotten a job at the state of Michigan in the Treasury Department. All of these details indicate what they have now told me: their combined income put us just on the cusp of the middle class.

Fast forward to when I was two and we moved to a house in a rural city called Laingsburg, Michigan, with a front, back, and side yard totaling over six acres where I would spend the rest of my childhood. Our nearest neighbors were a mile back in the woods and someone across the street that had 10 or more acres of land. Eventually we would use the field space that we called our side yard for planting hay. Growing up, my siblings and I would play outside with the few toys and gifts my parents could afford. For the longest time our only backyard decorations were a lone sandbox and a hand-me-down climbing structure from one of my father’s siblings. While we knew a lot of the things that we owned were hand-me-downs, we were never really fazed by it, rather we were thankful. And when we weren’t grateful, as we grew older, my parents lectured us that “money doesn’t grow on trees.” This was the first hint that pointed to a monetary value placed on just what we were able to do and not do as children; it was the basis for the undertones of how I would come to reflect on the social class system. My views are by no means radical; I understand that the class system has injustices and that each person has a place in that system. While I see it as unfair, I also see it as having a purpose and being shaped by the experiences that everyone has, from class at birth to unfortunate circumstances they encounter, with the possibility of mobility.

As I grew, I knew I was lucky to go to the school I attended. Most of the teachers were interested in helping their students achieve the potential they saw within them. While our programs weren’t super developed, we were still at a point where we were afforded an art class for part of each school year in elementary school where we got to make and take home clay sculptures and other small paintings. We also had a separate room for all the science classes, and out of the two gyms, one functioned as a lunch room. While we had to use some spaces for multiple purposes, we were able to actually have programs that were being cut elsewhere due to budgets. Looking back now, it really indicates the class level of my school system; most of the families in the area were middle class and that provided the school with art, gym, and a decent science program. But this also impacted my social class confusion; while we did have more programs than some schools, we had significantly less than others making it hard to tell just where in the class structure we were located.

Moving on to a new middle school, since the old one had burned down, each grade was separated into their own pods. The logic behind these pods was that they would go about helping to facilitate growth and the experience would make you closer to your classmates, which wasn’t necessarily that hard when each grade consisted of somewhere between 70 and 100 kids. But while they were still able to offer band, they would cut choir and eventually art from the possible extracurricular activities due to not being able to afford them. We also saw budget cuts to the special education program. A couple of years before I entered middle school, a home-economics course was eliminated. These budgets cuts were a clue that while there are programs that really help school children to grow and nurture their talents, they are not available to some and this is a reflection on the social class structure and money available to schools

Middle school was about the time I started realizing there were other people in school who were like me in a way since they did not have the most recent clothing, the popular brands, and their clothes looked worn and used like hand-me-downs I received. But then I began to notice that although we were alike in that aspect they were also different because they were on reduced or free lunch. While going through school I took it upon myself to observe my surroundings and so I knew that most kids would try to hide the fact they were on free or reduced lunch, as if it were something to be ashamed of. But this interaction made me think back to how my mom would freak out every year when the prices of lunch would go up, how she had three kids to pay for lunches eventually, and that there always seemed to be a struggle when it came to that Monday after two weeks of lunch money had run out and another $80 had to be found for lunch for the three of us kids. This subtly was an implication there were others with varying degrees of money troubles and that everyone I encountered didn’t have the same amount available to them. But I guess it never really dawned on me fully that this was called social class and that these were the struggles; this realization would come soon though.

There was also a time in middle school when my parents began encouraging and even flat out telling us that if we wanted anything in life, be it a new book or toy, we had to actually work for it; that there was no such thing as a handout. This was about the time I started working on my grandparents’ farms during the summer not only to make a little money so that I could get some of the things that I wanted, but also because it was a requirement if we were to go over there. My grandparents by no means were well-off in a monetary sense, but they did show how they worked hard for their money, and so they enjoyed some luxuries my parents didn’t have. With my uncle was still living with them, they were able to afford cell phones, cable, and—most important to me at the time—the Internet. This was an escape and even though I had to pick up rocks in the field for hours, learn to drive a tractor to help with planting fields, and do yard-work or chores around the house that were strenuous on my grandparents, I still cherished the life lessons I learned from doing these activities. They taught me the values of hard work, determination, and doing a job thoroughly so that it didn’t have to be redone; the work taught me respect, patience, and the appreciation for those who do hard labor.

After a while though, I realized other people my age were doing more with their summers than working for their grandparents, exploring nature, and occasionally going on excursions up north to a relative’s cabin. Rather, they were going on extensive vacations outside the state, some even flying to Cancun, Mexico, and other exotic places that were expensive and definitely outside my parents’ budget. They would come back with stories of how amazing this or that state was, what their parents just bought them, or how they were going someplace cool again in just a few short months. And not only did they bring back stories, but a lot of them returned to their modern and expensive homes, quite a few of which were located on one of the three lakes that surrounded the town we lived in. They would also say how they spent weeks just going out and being on the water in the summer and how their parents were always taking them jet skiing or tubing. When they would ask what I had done I would just say I had a busy summer and that we were able to go up north a couple times, all the time feeling inadequate and out of place. Looking back, this was probably due to social class anxieties that were present in drastic differences between some of my classmates and me. But this was not yet the catalyst that really made me aware of social class; that was yet to come.

Moving on to high school, it was much of the same as middle school: the consistent feeling of being caught somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of those I attended school with. Still stuck in the same perpetuating cycle of not feeling good enough, but feeling bad when I complained that I didn’t have what I wanted. I realize now how petty and grossly mistaken I was thinking that just because I didn’t have the newest gadget it was the end of the world. Most of the time my parents had food in the house; they always made sure the heat, light, and mortgage payments were made so we had a place to live; and we never went hungry. Granted a lot of the time they would bring home some form of takeout rather than make a meal, but they didn’t let us starve. Looking back, maybe this was also a clue, but I just thought it was due to being too tired at the end of a workday to make dinner. And then there was possibly the moment that changed it all; one word, 10 letters. Bankruptcy.

This word so often brings with it stigma and a sense of failure. The collectors calling every day for my parents and having to tell them that they weren’t home and we didn’t know when they would be home was probably the first warning sign I was too oblivious to see. The next was that my parents would consistently be getting bills in the mail: multiple envelopes from the same bank or company throughout the month. And finally, whenever it came to asking my parents for money to go to the movies or some activity the answer was always: “We don’t have the money right now,” or there was just a frustrated sound before they calculated how much they could spare. What I would learn later is that neither of my parents were good with money, that my mom had extensive medical bills—from her hip problems—that were outstanding due to inadequate health-care coverage before working for the state, and that they did not communicate their monetary needs with one another in an effective way that paid the bills and allowed them to save money.

As it was my senior year of high school when this happened, I like to think I was immediately more self- and social class conscious as a result. I started to complain less, tried to work a job to alleviate stress on my parents, and in general started to think about how my going to college would have to rely more than ever on scholarships, grants, and loans. Even though my parents are considered middle class, making around $100,000 a year, they still carried with them the debts of their past when they were part of the working class. I like to think that while the monetary amount assigned to their taxes every year tells one story, their experiences and previous obstacles create another story, one at odds with the new one. The reality of our situation was that whereas our fridge wasn’t really stocked in the past, now it was even less so. Extracurricular activities were no longer an option more than once a month, if that. Prom in my senior year of high school was also out of the question. It made me realize that with money comes responsibility and I started to lend my parents money when they couldn’t always make ends meet or needed to give us lunch money, but didn’t have any. It created a senior year full of stress and worry. As I moved forward with college applications, I began to realize that a lot of the schools I applied to I really could not afford, especially the University of Michigan (UM). And soon after filling out the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), it quickly became apparent that even with bankruptcy on record and my dad receiving wage-garnished checks, my parents were still not poor enough to qualify for financial aid, yet not rich enough to actually afford helping me through school. Where did that leave me? I didn’t actually know, I just knew I had to be conscious of the fact that I would continue to be on my own when it came to affording school.

Choosing to come to the University of Michigan, one of the most prestigious public schools in the country, is and was possibly one of the hardest decisions of my entire life. I knew coming here would mean having to take on debt that would accumulate to more money than I had seen in my entire life. If I didn’t get a job when I graduated college, I wouldn’t know how I was going to pay it back. But despite that, my parents encouraged me to get the best education that was available, and ultimately I decided they were right.

Since coming to Michigan, I have obtained and kept not one but three campus jobs, which include being student manager in dining, a facility supervisor at a recreation center, a field supervisor, and have continued to work at them over the course of four years. I also decided to become a Mary Kay Cosmetic consultant during my senior year, my fourth job and outside of the university. I know these jobs play a large role in how I view the social class dynamics here at the university. Sometimes I can’t help but feel out of place on this giant campus. My freshman year I was placed with a roommate who was part of the Summer Bridge Program. Bridge is supposed to be for lower-income students who come from less-privileged backgrounds to have a chance to integrate into campus before actually starting in the fall semester. While I was never quite sure of her social class, my roommate would come home once a week with bags from the mall and stores like Windsor, Abercrombie, and Michael Kors. It frustrated me there was so much she could buy and I was barely scraping by on what I made at my first two jobs; tuition and staying enrolled were more important to me than the latest fashion trends.

When I started my second job halfway through my freshman year, social class became much more evident to me. Most of the other students I talked to were from families that were considered working or middle class, and they needed jobs in order to afford rent, utilities, and groceries that were not included in their loans and grants for tuition. They strived to make ends meet, often living paycheck to paycheck and wishing they could have mom and dad pay off their balances and come out debt-free. I was and continue to be in a similar position; their struggles were very much like mine and I continuously would be appreciative to know that I wasn’t alone. People like this offered a community in which I was welcome, found support, and made some friends. Then I would meet the people who made me wonder if being upper-middle class was really what I wanted, the people who perpetuate all of the bad stereotypes about the rich being entitled and only wanting to further themselves. I once heard another student worker who did the minimum that was required of her and always acted like she had better places to be saying the only reason she worked was “because mom and dad didn’t give her enough spending money each month.” This meant her parents were paying for rent, utilities, and groceries, and also giving her an allotted amount of money to spend; but it wasn’t enough. This whole situation baffled me because it wasn’t like she needed the job she had, rather she wanted the money for drinking and going out; to have that luxury was an unattainable dream for me. This seemed drastically unfair she would only have a job when it suited her and that she did not care otherwise because at this point I was already paying on my student loans and was lucky if I saw $20 from a paycheck for spending money.

I’ve also heard people explain over my four years here at Michigan that if it were not for mom or dad pushing them to get a job for the experience, they would not have even considered it. Rather than being at work, they wanted to go party and do fun things with friends, and that really showed; their work ethic was vastly lacking as well as underdeveloped, and their work experience honestly seemed to have no benefit for them. These two interactions gave me a bitter taste for the top 5% upper-middle-class students who seemed to be a major force across campus. While I did find those who were from middle- and working-class backgrounds or who needed to work to afford school, they were lost in a sea of Greek letters, Timberlands, Patagonia, and Michael Kors purses. Essentially those of us who had to work were invisible; there was limited space for us in the ever capitalistic and money-hungry machine that society and the university have become.

Through the course of my four years at the UM, I decided to major in psychology and minor in women’s studies, specifically the LGBTQ+ concentration. The classes I have taken and people I have meet have encouraged me to want to pursue a master’s degree in social work. One such course is a psychology class where I was placed in a daycare for two days a week, four hours each day—working with 2½–3½-year-olds. This developmentally focused curriculum helped me realize I want to help children and their development. An interaction with my current best friend who was subjected to the foster care system also spurred my interest in social work. Foster care and systems like them are on the lower part of the class system, and because of that, students who have been in foster care often have less privilege, as well as more adverse life events that make college and other life opportunities not seem realistic. I strive to one day challenge this and help bring opportunities afforded by higher classes to those who are stuck in the lower classes due to no fault of their own. It’s not about being upwardly mobile for me, rather realizing and addressing the injustices of our social class system and working as hard as I can to give back and help to brighten the opportunities for people in other, less affluent social classes.

I have graduated from the University of Michigan with over $40,000 of debt, and thinking about adding to that by going to graduate school. Just thinking about this scares and excites me at the same time. By taking Dwight Lang’s sociology class on the experiences of social class in college and families in my last semester at Michigan has made me realize just how many people have broken through the barriers and how many people still struggle. It makes me more aware that while I am financially self-sufficient, and that it’s terrifying and empowering all at the same time, there are still others out there who are not in the spot I am. I hope one day I can look back and say I’ve made it and that I am financially able to help those who are still struggling, as I know just how hard it is to come from a background that does not offer much. The caveat to that is I am and always will be inherently privileged and there are others who have overcome more adversity than I have. I come from a middle ground that some may never see in their life, and I can truly say I appreciate all the experiences I’ve had and how they have shaped my social class consciousness.