Sabrina Murray

Lewis and Clark college tuition is $50,574, on top of that a student has to pay for room and board, food plan, books, and other fees. With that said, everyone that attends here cannot be from a low-income family. Yes, majority of us are on scholarships but only a select one or two are on a full ride. So, in theory, we all are probably upper middle class, or rich. However, the weird thing is no one wants to admit they have money. People act as if they cannot pay for a $7 meal at a food truck, but talk about their summer home in Arizona and going to Cabo in Mexico for spring break. My favorite example was when I had received a notification that my monthly payment due was coming up. A teammate saw it and asked what that meant, I said “It’s for people to space out paying for tuition each semester” She replied, “Oh, I’ve never heard of that. I paid it all with a check in the beginning of the year.”

 This comment was hilarious to me because it was a typical response from a student that can afford going to a private school. There are such sharp differences in people that will openly admit to having money or go to great lengths to deny it. Why do people act like they have nothing when in this environment it is expected that everyone has money? Is it really being humble/ shy? Or is there something larger at play? It is common to see in this era that the amount of likes and followers a person has gives them validation that they are cool. So, people post about their amazing adventures they have on the weekends, but also want to appear relatable so the next day have an edited photo of a coffee cup and a book captioned, “Just relaxing and chilling today.” Either way, this affect seems to be projected on real life, in that people are also expected to be as perfect as a picture. It seems that people here want to be seen as the really cool and adventurous person but if they tell people they can afford to go on trips in Nepal than the illusion is broken.

In society, people can sympathize with others that are of the same class. But when someone is in a higher class than you are and then talk about their amazing adventures, it creates envy and jealousy. Really there is no difference in the fact that two people go on awesome trips but one happens to have more money than another. It seems to me that society has warped the image of success and money to be a negative connotation. So, someone that talks about how much money they have would automatically make someone feel negative towards them because they are held at a different esteem. This is definitely, related to class struggles and self-esteem. No one wants to feel like they are lesser than someone else. And now it seems to be exemplified even more because of our constant need of validation instilled in us from social media affects. Technology will only continue to grow and impact our lives more which will continue to enforce this type of behavior and thought. Everyone here will continue to hide their money so they will not have to be ostracized or looked at differently if they claim to be poorer than they really are.