"Class and the Transition to Adulthood," "Cause of Death: Inequality " and "Why Are Droves of Unqualified, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? Because Their Dads Are Alumni" (Rosenblum and Travis, p. 292-310)

This portion of the book points out that as the inequality gap between lower and upper classes increases, health benefits for the lower class citizens decreases. This could be due to the decreased buy in or social unity that the two classes of people have. As people stop identifying themselves with an entire group of people, they are less likely to care about supporting them or the institutions that contribute to their well being. This is what the article points out, that upper class citizens can afford to pay for private schools, healthcare, etc, and therefore do not need to financially support public schools and public healthcare thus decreasing those public institutions funding. This decrease in funding ends up decreasing the support school, hospitals, etc have which in turns affects the lower class population who need those institutions to support their education and health care needs.

"...even poor people in rich countries like the United States are rich compared to ordinary people in poor countries" (Rosenblum and Travis, p. 302). As this section of books suggests, this in untrue. People in the U.S. are in fact not better off than other poor people in other countries. The authors pointed out that poor people in the U.S. my have material items such as televisions but when it comes to healthcare, there is no benefit from living in the U.S. and being poor versus being poor somewhere else. In fact, though African American families in the U.S. earn five times more than those in El Salvador, men from both countries are expected to live on average to 67 years old (Rosenblum and Travis, 2012). 

In contrast to the difficulties those with less income experience, those with connections and increased income experience advantages for their lineage. These benefits can be increased access to healthcare, since increased money can afford individuals to buy services those with less money can not, as well as access to higher education that is seemingly undeserved. By undeserved I mean that these individuals did not earn or show higher grades than other individuals from less connected families, though they still were accepted to Ivy League colleges more often than not. 

The situation occurring in the U.S. is that children with parents who previously attended Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, etc were likely to be accepted over others even though their grades were lower. These schools have increasingly admitted to these students, referred as "legacies," to be admitted over other students, to ensure that alumni financial support continued, though no research has been done to support this idea.

Why is this allowed and why don't people push back against these universities? Obviously, because no one is pushing back hard enough and instead, it seems like others would like to join this elite group rather than call it out. "Joshua Li, a former co-chair of Harvard's Asian-American Association, explains his complacency differently: "We understand that in the future Asian-American students will receive these tips as well" (Rosenblum and Travis, p. 309). 

Unfortunately, it seems as though if one is about to benefit from joining the elite class, favoritism for connected people and discrimination for everyone else is swept aside. In theory, it would be better to sacrifice  you and your families gains by not joining this elitist class; however, when it comes down to it, what would you decide to do? Would you enjoy the favoritism or stick to your ethical ground?

Rosenblum, K. E., & Travis, T. C. (2012). The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability (ed.). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.