SIPA STORIES: SIPA administration and community neglect responsibility to support low-income students

Photo by Josh Appel

This article is part of a series on the experiences of low-income students at SIPA, including stories from Kat Sewon Oh, Casidy Cunningham, and Ejona Bakalli.

By Kelsie Greene (MIA ’23)

During my first year at SIPA, I’ve continuously interacted with an administration and community that have made a practice of excluding students with income restrictions from accessing the full benefits of programming, networking, and opportunities. Meanwhile, exorbitant tuition and living costs trap us in debt without providing proper resources for necessities like food, shelter, and health care.

After living in New York for the past five years and interacting with institutions of higher learning, this is hardly surprising. But as an institution that prides itself on solving global issues and promoting diversity in international and public policy, SIPA must be held to higher standards.

But first, a note on my privilege and positionality. I’m white, cisgender, heterosexual, well-educated, and do not have disabilities. I come from a family that income measures consider solidly middle class in the U.S. South. Before I came to New York for college, I considered myself well-off. Then I learned that living expenses cost more than twice as much here than at home. In my work-study position in college, I made more money than my mom does as an elementary school teacher in North Carolina. Still, my parents were able to use their savings, income, and retirement funds to help me through college. 

Because of this, I was able to save most of the money I made working two to three part-time jobs during my four years of college. These savings paid for the last eight months of rent in the apartment I share with a friend, thanks to lower rent prices during the COVID-19 crisis. Unfortunately, these funds are running out. As of June, I will no longer have any savings.

At Columbia, I have a work-study position where I make $16.50 an hour with the Institute for the Study of Human Rights. I am allocated 10 hours a week, meaning I make $660 per month. Although I use city programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — also known as food stamps — and Fair Fares to eat and pay for transportation, $660 per month is not enough to cover rent. I’ve been offered an assistantship position in the fall, but even this salary of around $6,500 is barely enough to pay rent and living expenses.

I have received very little support from the university, and this is an experience I hear from low-income students all too often, with harsher consequences for students in more vulnerable positions than me. While I qualified for and received money allocated for Columbia’s “students with the most financial need,” the SIPA emergency fund requires students to explain a specific emergency event in order to receive financial assistance. Don’t they understand that charging students inordinate amounts of money for tuition and failing to offer jobs that cover living expenses put students in a constant state of emergency? If full-time students need food stamps and emergency funding to survive, even while working for SIPA, what does this say about the university? Salaried positions, such as Teaching Assistantships, are given based on merit and connections with professors, rather than merit and need. 

Furthermore, SIPA’s summer funding application to support students pursuing unpaid or low-paid internships closed on Friday, April 29. Those of us supporting organizations that are truly making transformative change for local and global communities are even more likely to be unpaid, and more likely to be hired in May. This misalignment is, at best, a result of the administration’s ignorance of low-income students working to address injustice at SIPA and, at worst, an indication of their unwillingness to fully and adequately support us.

This summer, and next year, many of us will have to work nearly full-time in addition to our schoolwork just to remain housed and manage our debt. Some of my friends and colleagues at SIPA will do this while financially supporting family members.

Among the many difficulties of being low-income at SIPA, one that is often overlooked is the lack of opportunities. It is nearly impossible for low-income students to hold unpaid internships, reach their full potential in class, network with other students, and more when limited funds and time must be delegated for survival. Meanwhile, other students, especially those running major student organizations, seem to have a lack of awareness of the exclusivity they bolster on campus and off by organizing social activities that require extensive disposable income. 

I acknowledge that I have many economic privileges, in some ways more than my friends and colleagues who have participated in this series on the experiences of low-income students at SIPA. I have supportive friends and family and SNAP money for food. My savings let me occasionally indulge in self-care, until they run out next month. I am receiving an excellent education and I have $2,000 left in savings. However, I have $3,000 in credit card debt, $500 in medical debt (for therapy), and about $100,000 in education debt. 

This is clearly not sustainable, and solutions are running dry. What will it take for SIPA to acknowledge their responsibility to support the entire student body, not just those from exceptionally elite backgrounds?

Kelsie Greene (MIA ‘23) is studying Humanitarian Policy with a specialization in Gender and Public Policy. After graduation, she plans to focus her career on transnational solidarity and centering feminism and social justice to advocate for policies that support marginalized populations.