Brown students are the richest in the Ivy League and it’s embarrassing

Brown is supposed to be diverse—home to a disparate, vibrant community according to the university’s website—and yet the student body is arguably the most uniformly privileged in the ivy league and far more wealthy than most schools in the nation.

According to The New York Times nearly one fifth of all students at Brown come from families that make more than $630,000 per year (the top 1% of income earners), beating out all the other schools in the ivy league except Dartmouth. And among all colleges in the nation, this number puts Brown at 19th. Further yet, a whopping 70% of the students at Brown come from families making  $110,000 or more per year (the top fifth). So not only do we have some of the wealthiest students, we have one of the largest quantity of wealthy students.

At the same time, only 4.1% of students at Brown come from families that make $20,000 or less per year (the bottom fifth), which places Brown at a disgraceful 2095th out of the 2,395 colleges surveyed.

But what does this mean?

We consider ourselves the down-to-earth ivy, a school full of free-thinkers and hipsters. We like to think that we cultivate discussion and inculcate perspective. And yet how do students from the same economic backgrounds fit into all of that? Diversity is crucial, and not just racial or ethnic diversity.

Socioeconomic diversity is essential to meaningful discourse, especially in today’s political climate. At a time when the nation is increasingly being split along socioeconomic divides, it’s dangerous for us to live in a bubble. The voices of the working class and the poor need to play a larger role in our dialogue—or else we’re left scratching our heads when things like Trump being elected happen. In a sea of like-minded privileged liberals, we’re left wondering how anyone can support a candidate we call racist and misogynistic. And it doesn’t help that everyone around us is also anti-Trump. Fundamentally, we’re being isolated from the opinions and values that we need to understand in order to alleviate misconception and misunderstanding.

On the other hand, among ivy leagues students, Brown students are earning the least money later on in life with a median income of $66,900 at age 34. Maybe our privilege has taught us to value things other than money and maybe we’re choosing more altruistic, less money-centered goals. Well, at least we have that.