Most indebted students-Clark Atlanta University

[gtcorndog]

Originally Posted by Missingatlanta

Ga state is just a mid-level school. It's really not that hard to get into. When I was in high school most people applied to Ga state as their backup school. Clark is probably a few steps below Ga state if anything, but they are about equal except for Ga State is more appropriately priced.

Not even close. Scroll up a few posts and take a look at the difference in admission standards. Ga State isn't Harvard, but it sure isn't CAU.

[futureATLien]

Originally Posted by Ant131531

Because the statistics say so. There are very few good HBCU's which score high rankings. Yes, unfortunately, part of the reason is black people. I'm not afraid to say it and I'm black too and have went to majority black schools and diverse schools. The black people generally didn't take school as seriously as other ethnicity as a whole. There are always exceptions and outliers, but it's the truth.

sad, but true. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I knew during college, that preferred to party over going to class, or believed in the "C's get degrees" philosophy.

[ATLTJL]

sad, but true. I cannot begin to tell you how many people I knew during college, that preferred to party over going to class, or believed in the "C's get degrees" philosophy.

I hate to play Devil's advocate because you guys might be right, I went to a diverse school so I'm not that familiar with how heavy black populations might differ.

But I would like to say that black kids certainly do not have a monopoly on this type of behavior. I knew plenty of white kids who preferred to party over going to class.

[residinghere2007]

I can believe the OP and I did go to CAU. I don't have a boatload of debt though but mostly because I got a lot of scholarships, including tens of thousands from UNCF.

I also agree that the standards at CAU are lower than other private schools but that is mostly because HBCUs traditionally would let in students with poorer scores/GPA in order to give them the opportunity to go to college. My husband is an example of this as he had under a 2.0 when he graduated high school but had above average SAT scores, he got into state schools and other schools but was told he would be on probation when he arrived. He instead chose to go to an HBCU and he didn't have to start out on probation.

I also don't think the high amount of debt has to do with CAU students being black (and LOL at that actually). I feel it has more to do with CAU not educating their students about student loan debt and also about students being mystified and impressed with having an HBCU experience moreso than obtaining an education and more importantly, the cost of that education. When I first went to CAU in the late 90s, I was not given any education about student loans and since my parents were high school dropouts, they could not give me any information about them either. I ended up taking out a substantial loan because I didn't realize how much room and board would be, my scholarship covered tuition but not room and board. I also was not given information about the different scholarships available to me from the scholarship office. I ended up looking into and applying for them myself and got a lot of money that way. My husband got the same sort of experience at the HBCU he went to and he has a large amount of student loan debt, together we have quite a bit due to us being really poor when we first got together and being on forebearance for 4-5 years during that time and interest accruing and basically tripling what we originally owed.

I hope CAU will see this as more of an issue and educate their student body about this. I hope also that the students themselves stop taking out more money than they need, which is also an issue at CAU, in order to buy "stuff" (ipads,iphones, cars, etc.). A lot of my classmates did this and they still do this at CAU. They don't think about how they will have to pay all that money back eventually.

Also in regards to being serious about school, I think there is an equal mix at CAU. I know I was serious about school. I'd say about 40% of those in my major, who I was close to were serious about their grades. I also knew a lot of partiers and those who thought that C's were okay because it wasn't failing. But I don't think that has to do with black people in general. Some people just are more seriously academic than others and that is not based on race.

ETA: to the poster who talking about the ghetto hood rats at CAU, you don't know what you're talking about. IME, most of the girls there were not "hood rat" at all and most did not have any multi-colored hair. We had the natural girls - of which I was one, and the relaxer girls who mostly looked like Gabrielle Union. Most of the girls were pretty into their studies who I knew and were nice, sweet girls. A lot of the young ladies came from pretty wealthy families and I also met a lot of "legacies" who had parents/grandparents attend CC or AU in the past, they would get a discount on tuition. There were a lot of preacher kids as well.

There were a lot of guys with saggy pants (I went back to finish my degree in 2006 so got into a lot of funny discussions with my classmates, me being an untraditional student) and I joked around with them a lot, but none of them were thugs either. There was one guy who was in my major and he was a former criminal with gold teeth and a lot of tatoos but he was extremely intelligent and also was very serious about his studies, most of the guys were, even though they were into the ladies too and a lot of them admitted they wanted to come to CAU because men are so outnumbered by the fine, smart women lol. The tattooed, gold teeth classmate eventually got all his gold teeth out our senior year with a referral by a professor at the school and he got the tattoo on his neck removed as well as he knew he couldn't turn his life fully around without making that transformation. I hope he is doing well now as I didn't keep up with him but he was the closest to a thug I knew when I went to CAU in both the late 90s and late 00s.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by Missingatlanta

Ga state is just a mid-level school. It's really not that hard to get into. When I was in high school most people applied to Ga state as their backup school. Clark is probably a few steps below Ga state if anything, but they are about equal except for Ga State is more appropriately priced.

Yeah, GA State isn't hard for someone like me who worked hard in highschool to achieve a high gpa(3.5+) vs. someone who didn't work hard in highschool and barely got a 3.0, if that. Ofc, if you're at a 3.5 gpa with 1150+ SAT/25+ ACT, it isn't hard.

GA State's acceptance rate is like 44%, meanwhile CAU's is like 75% or something?


They are not equal. Having .35+ gpa differences in the average accepted freshman is very significant along with 250-300+ SAT differences. A 6 point difference in ACT scores are also significant.

They are not on the same level....don't ever compare GSU to CAU. CAU is a trash school. I'd go to Morehouse before I'd go to CAU.

GSU is more on UGA's level then it is on CAU's level.

[Ant131531]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I hate to play Devil's advocate because you guys might be right, I went to a diverse school so I'm not that familiar with how heavy black populations might differ.

But I would like to say that black kids certainly do not have a monopoly on this type of behavior. I knew plenty of white kids who preferred to party over going to class.

Yeah, blacks aren't the only ones who like to party...you're very right about that. Why else is UGA named a big party school with 80+% white students?

But I'm mainly talking in highschool...at least the one I went to, whites as a whole seem to take school more seriously then the black students. There were more whites in the magnet program then blacks despite more blacks going to the school. That should tell a lot right there.

[Mishap]

Personally, I think it's a combination of lax admissions, ease of getting student loans, and lack of other funding sources. As we've transitioned to a service economy, we constantly rail on the need to go to college but we rarely distinguish a good value from a bad one. First generation college students tend to be the least savvy (and have the least means) to the schools that don't provide outcomes commensurate to their price tag and often roll up the debt going to schools that can't pull in the choice employers. CAU and many other schools (not just HBCUs) attempt differentiation by focusing on soft factors (religious, race, non-traditional students, most ultimate frisbee games, etc) while ignoring the economic outcomes for many of their alumni. Just a few generations back, HBCUs were the only outlet for blacks to get to college. These days, worthy students have a host of options and the absolutely outstanding students can get full rides to the best schools (Harvard et al give full tuition to middle class kids so long as they've been accepted).

I don't know what the numbers are but I'm fairly certain there are hundreds of other mediocre (at best) private schools that take in marginal students w/ the same sales pitch. This also includes the for-profit schools that will enroll anyone w/ a pulse since the gov't will backstop pretty much anyone w/ a SS# w/ student loans. The problem is exclusivity and perceived academic quality are what draw recruiters and cupcake admissions never puts on a good show (regardless if the academics are there). Charging 30k/yr for tuition may seem a great value against Harvard's 40k+ but given how few people pay sticker ($30B+ endowment pays a lot of scholarships), the actual cost is far higher.

As for the partying, you have to remember that enjoying yourself too much doesn't hurt you too much if you come from multi-generational wealth. Take a cake major, pledge the same frat as dad, and as long as you graduate you can still get decent enough internships at Dad's firm so you can get the rec letters needed for law school. The same goes whether you attend UGA or Harvard. Tons of hard work can close a lot of that gap but that doesn't mean some people can get there w/o exerting nearly as much effort. Partying too much w/o the family backstop just leads to student loan defaults and heartache.

[Onthemove2014]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

I hate to play Devil's advocate because you guys might be right, I went to a diverse school so I'm not that familiar with how heavy black populations might differ.

But I would like to say that black kids certainly do not have a monopoly on this type of behavior. I knew plenty of white kids who preferred to party over going to class.

As a black guy who went to a diverse school I agree. Hell, aren't the schools rated as the top "party schools" typically white or diverse anyway?

[ATLTJL]

Hell, aren't the schools rated as the top "party schools" typically white or diverse anyway?

Yes, I think they are because most of the top party schools are state universities and most large public schools seem to have fairly strict diversity requirements for enrollment.

However, just because schools are party schools doesn't mean that the students aren't serious. I knew a few kids who only cared about partying and let their grades slip....but also, some of the smartest people I've ever met who did incredibly well in school and went on to very successful careers were also huge partiers. There are some people who can handle partying without it causing a hit to their grades.

I think nowadays almost all state schools are what could be called diverse, meaning they represent the ethnic and racial makeup at least of the general U.S. population. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell walking on campuses due to self segregation among some groups, but the enrollment numbers should show pretty good diversity at almost any public university. I can't think of a single one that would be able to be called "white." That was why in an earlier thread I didn't quite understand the appeal of purposely choosing a school that is made up virtually entirely of a single race or ethnicity.