It’s no secret that Tufts has a large population of wealthy students, especially as an elite, private institution. The degree of that wealth, however, is a taboo topic.
ANew York Times article written in 2017 brought this issue to light by publishing statistics about income and economic diversity at Tufts, as well as at other institutions, drawing from millions of anonymous tax records.
According to the article, 19% of students are in the top 1%, and 77% of students are in the top 20%, with a median family income of $224,800. This equates to nearly 1 in 5 Tufts students’ being in the top 1% and approximately 4 in 5 students’ being in the top 20%.
Tufts also has a mobility index of 12%, which represents the likelihood that a student will move up two or more income quintiles. This ranks Tufts 30th out of 64 elite colleges for income mobility.
Class has significant implications on student life, ranging from the link between income and standardized test scores to the search for internships, as highlighted in aDaily opinion piece.
In a reaction to topics such as income inequality and class mobility, several organizations are working to bring these conversations to college campuses. Resource Generation is one such organization.
According to itswebsite, Resource Generation is a “multiracial membership community of young people (18-35) with wealth and/or class privilege committed to the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power.” It is currently leading workshops on Tufts’ campus.
Sophomores Isaac Gewirth and Rory Erlich, as well as senior Elliott Trahan, partnered with Resource Generation and will participate in its workshops at Tufts in March and April.
Erlich, who participated in the workshops previously through the Sunrise Movement, a youth organization that works to prevent climate change, said that the conversations were extremely productive and drove him to bring the workshops to Tufts after becoming further aware of his family’s wealth.
“A lot of [my discomfort with familial wealth] was centered around investments in fossil fuels [and] especially given that I was becoming a more vocal climate activist-organizer type, that’s obviously very hypocritical,”Erlich said.
Gewirth’s involvement with the organization stemmed from having conversations with Erlich about class privilege on campus and trying to reconcile their own class privilege.
“Honestly everyone on Tufts’ campus could benefit from a workshop like this in some way or another … so perhaps this is like the start of being able to work towards something like that,”Gewirth said.
Trahan had been told about the organization by Erlich and thought it was exactly the type of work he should be doing.
“I’ve been a climate activist for a couple years, on campus and off campus, and I think I’ve been recently thinking a lot about how we can bring class politics more into climate activism, especially because it tends to concentrate and resonate with a lot of people who have access to power and privilege, like myself, but I didn’t really know where to start,” Trahan said. “Now, all of a sudden, there’s this organization that … has a great start and a lot of support resources.”
The workshops will consist of four sessions, Erlich shared, the first titled “Money Stories,” during which participants will explore personal stories about what assets their families have.The next session will focus on the social dynamics of class privilege, especially at college campuses. When Erlich completed a similar workshop, there was also a module on wealth and class privilege and race. Finally, the last session will focus on tangible actions like setting redistribution goals.
Trahanbelieves that people with wealth and class privilege have an obligation to fight against capitalism.
“The current dominant world order is literally death, and so if you come to that analysis, and you’re not thinking about how you’re situated to be able to fight against that, then what are you doing?” Trahan said.
Gewirth expressed the need and hope for a change of campus culture, among many other things.
“The three of us have talked about hopefully getting to a space where class is talked about in an open way, class privilege is talked about in an open way and can be called out in an open way and is not obscured, because I think most people walk around campus just in the mindset that everyone is of the same class status, which is obviously not true,” said Gewirth.
Erlich, Trahan and Gewirthwere all clear in saying that the workshops alone are not enough to take substantive action.
“It will take more than one two-hour session,” Erlich said.
They also emphasized the numerous other ways to personally address wealth and class privilege beyond the workshops, especially since registration is now closed.
“Who says Resource Generation is the only way you can engage with this kind of work?” Trahan said.
Other ways includechecking outResource Generation’s website, which has an abundance of resources for use. There’s also a Boston chapter for anyone that wants to get involved off campus. Erlichencourages people to have conversations with their families about wealth even if it’s hard. Finally, Gewirth recommends the book “Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites” (2009) by Mitchell L. Stevens.
Trahan also highlighted some of the work that Tufts faculty have been doing through Tufts Action Group, which is under the umbrella of Tufts for Black Lives. The group’slist of demands demonstrates that people are thinking about these issues and are working toward them, and they must continue to do so.
“Stay tuned, because ... we hope that more [workshops] will be in the future,”Trahan said.
