What My College Friendships Taught Me About Socioeconomic Status

Andie* was my first college friend. We bonded over music and TV shows and our secular Jewish need to complain about everything. But after the sheen of the first month of school wore off, I noticed she got agitated when I would suggest going out to eat off-campus, something I did a lot because I chase great meals like a spaniel seeking a squirrel. She didn't understand why we would want to spend money on outside food when we had unlimited swipes at the dining hall downstairs. At the time I felt rejected, because food adventures were my primary mode of connection. In hindsight, I can see that she not only had a point — there was so much food available, and it was already paid for — but that her reaction was probably rooted in defensiveness about her own financial standing.

Before Andie, I never really thought about my socioeconomic status. I met her in the first few days of my first year at college, at an exorbitantly priced private liberal arts school in an already expensive, old-money city — the kind of place where people casually talk about parking spaces for their yachts. I was 3,000 miles from the California suburb that raised me, where I'd always had friends from decently diverse backgrounds: some lived in sprawling McMansions, others in modest apartments and one-story homes. My family fell somewhere in the middle. But it wasn't until I arrived at college, where students were either stressed about money or busy flaunting their wealth, that the invisible lines dividing us all by class suddenly snapped into sharp focus.

While my scholarship and financial aid softened the blow to my family's budget, sending me to that school was still a major undertaking for my parents and grandparents — though not one I knew much about, because we didn't talk about it at home. Nor did we talk about how much cheaper it would have been for me to stay in California (with its vastly discounted in-state tuition). The bottom line was that I would go to college, no matter what. I would pick where, no matter what. And we would make it work, no matter what. I didn't ask any other questions.

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Aja Evans, LMHC, is a board-certified therapist, speaker, and writer specializing in financial therapy. She is also the president-elect on the Financial Therapy Association board and the author of "Feel Good Finance."

Lots of kids in college describe themselves as "poor," but few mean it literally. Andie did. She talked openly about her family's finances, and the strain of her pricey education. If she was poor, I didn't know what I was. But I did know that I didn't have the same kind of money anxiety that seemed to follow her around to every class, meal, and study session. At 18, I wasn't equipped to have meaningful conversations about socioeconomic status because I was oblivious to mine. What I know now is that ignorance of my own standing was itself a function of my financial privilege. In my whole life, my parents only had to sit me down once, in the midst of the 2008 recession, for a hard conversation about money and what we could afford. I don't remember it ever really coming up again.

Financial therapist Aja Evans confirms that it tends to be the people who fall somewhere in the middle — what we'd call the middle and upper middle classes — who are the least versed in their financial truths, while people on the extreme ends of the spectrum generally know more about money and whether or not they have it. Even if a wealthy kid isn't directly included in conversations about money management, chances are at least some of those conversations are happening in that kid's vicinity. Conversely, kids who grew up in low-income households learn early — directly and indirectly — about how and when to spend money. Those with the least proximity to money conversations are often the kids like me: the kids who grew up comfortable, wanting for nothing, but don't necessarily have trust funds.

"The education hasn't always come through to everybody" in the middle, Evans says, which means going away to college, where suddenly those economic differences are on full display, can be jarring.

"It can be really shocking to enter a new bubble, full of diversity, whether it's economic diversity, social status, wealth, race, all of it," she tells PS. "You might be saying, 'I had no idea that 18 year olds were driving around brand new Infinitis,' or maybe you're like, 'Not everybody has a car?' That will be new to people if that's different from their home standard of living."

An open dialogue about money and my family's financial standing would have benefitted me immensely before going away to college. I may have been able to meet Andie where she was at more easily, and discuss how we formed different values that stem from our unique, individual relationships to money. Maybe it would have helped me be less judgmental of Andie, and not respond to her anxiety with anxieties of my own. And maybe it would have set me up to make more sound financial decisions after college, too, instead of spending beyond what my media salary could really afford.

I don't blame my parents or my grandparents for not sitting me down to talk about this stuff. They worked hard to get our family to such a comfortable place, and they have given me more than I could ever hope to pay them back for, financially, spiritually, and in the genes department. (I have nice hair.)

Plus I acknowledge that these conversations are really hard, something Evans also emphasizes.

"Talking about money is notoriously difficult, and parents really haven't figured out how to talk to their kids about it yet," she says. But that's beginning to change. With the pandemic, recent recessions, and the proliferation of financial wellness, debt, and even bankruptcy influencers on social media, the money talk taboo is slowly being shed, she adds.

Evans says the truth is that "you can't necessarily assume someone's socioeconomic status without asking them outright." We often don't know where a person's money actually comes from. "People make assumptions that somebody can afford something just because they're doing it, but that's not necessarily true. That person might be drowning in debt."

Comparison is so central to the college experience, some of us may as well have majored in it. For a lot of young people, college is the first time they're around a bunch of other kids whose lives up to that point have looked different from their own. That can be disorienting, but it's also one of the best arguments in favor of going to college at all, if you're able: that you meet new people who challenge your worldview in sometimes uncomfortable ways. Socioeconomic status is just one of the differences students are bound to notice, and that's healthy. But comparison isn't useful if it ultimately leaves you feeling bad about yourself, Evans cautions — something Andie and I both needed to hear at that age.

"Please try not to tie your net worth to your self worth," she says. "You're a valuable person whether you have the money or don't have the money, and if anybody's gonna treat you poorly either way, they're probably not your people. That can be really difficult at a time of life when having those friends feels like the most important thing in the world."

Andie and I didn't stay friends, not because of money stuff but because of other (actually important) incompatibilities. (I'm sure it didn't help that she caught me at a time when I was so closeted I actually said out loud that bisexuality isn't real. Joke's on me, my Chappell Roan obsession, and my growing collection of small tattoos.) The lessons I learned about myself, my status, and my world may have outlived the friendship, but I'm grateful for her all the same.

*Name has been changed for privacy.

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she's covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.