StickWithANose

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a generally well constructed article addressing the issues facing the nation’s flag-ship universities that I recommend you read, but something else caught my eye that I’d like to bring to your attention.

In discussing the impact of rising tuition costs, the article offers the following quote from the president of the University of California:

Universities have reached deep in their pockets to protect vulnerable students from tuition increases. Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, defends his university’s record in preserving financial aid, noting that families with incomes under $60,000 pay not one penny of their fees. “The real crunch,” he says, is helping families that make roughly $100,000. “The most at risk at this time really are going to be the middle class.”

Really? Since when does a family income of roughly $100,000 equate with the middle class? The median household income in the US is approximately $43,000, and a family income of $100,000 puts a family in the top 20%. When the president of one of the nation’s largest land-grant institutions doesn’t have a firm grasp of social stratification in the US then it tells you just how deeply the myth of the middle class has burrowed into popular consciousness.