Thoughts on Jessie: We all know that housing is incredibly expensive in California, but perhaps -- given that she's young/naive/not yet a homeowner herself -- it was news to her. I agree that she isn't rich, but her parents are. She may claim that she's "middle class", and her parents may have raised her with middle class values and may have purposefully given her less than they could afford to do, but she is NOT middle class. Her family earns a million dollars every 4 years. Even if they don't spend it, they have it upon which to fall back.
This, times a million. I feel like this is what people keep missing when they try to say, "but I LIVE like I'm middle class! I SPEND like I'm middle class!" sure, but if you have a financial cushion that people who were truly making a "moderate" income for the U.S. would not be able to save up if they were spending at your level, it's not really the same thing.
also agree with dramaman, I doubt Jesse is completely financially independent at this point (Jenny may be), so you can't really decouple them from their parents yet.
Yes, it's often hard for college students -- being young and relatively naive -- to understand these things. I know I didn't when I was that age.
I was raised poor, but not typical poor: We were first-generation poor, which is a world away from families who have always been poor. My parents raised us with middle class values. We saw our aunts and uncles working and reaping the rewards -- we understood that this was within our grasp. We saw our grandparents retiring -- we understood that this, too, was within our grasp. We definitely were raised to value education and work, which are perhaps the most important middle class ideals. I'd say that's why 4 out of 5 of us have "overachieved" considering we were raised poor.
But underneath, no matter what values may have been instilled in us, we were not really middle class. We had nothing upon which to fall back. Our parents couldn't pay for summer trips and educationally enriching opportunities, couldn't pay college tuition, couldn't buy us cars, etc.
So, yeah, you can measure yourself by what you spend, or you can measure yourself by what you earn . . . but the line between the two is somewhat fuzzy. And it's even more so for young people like Jenny and Jessie, who are not really any particular socio-economic class yet. They aren't really inheriting their parents' social status -- we don't do that in America -- but they haven't yet established themselves yet either.
I encountered the Jesse's of the world when I entered college and there really is a different world view, even if the the high SES students aren't into fashion or spendy ways. They don't do summer jobs, they have adventures or they continue with academic pursuits. They have effortless connections to advice and career steps and their families anticipate what they'll need and figure that out.
The concept of summer jobs is changing among college students -- and I think it has to do with the ease and acceptability of student loans.
When I was in college, EVERYONE worked in the summer. EVERYONE. As spring semester waned, people began to be concerned about where they'd work . . . and pretty much everyone went home over spring break to try to line up some type of a job. Those who didn't have something promised by the time exams arrived were worried! We all needed to go home and start working Monday after exams ended! We worked all summer and didn't spend. We needed that money.
Today my daughter is a college student (in a state university equivalent to the one I attended, in the same state), and I'd estimate fewer than half of her classmates work during the summer. Several of her 20-21 year old classmates have literally NEVER earned a dollar (aside from the occasional babysitting gig). The drive to get a job and work during breaks just doesn't exist. Yet most of them just "accept" student loans as inevitable . . . and they don't seem to "get" the connection.
I think its important to remember that the United States actually has quite low social mobility. The chances are in the US that if you're born poor you'll stay poor, as opposed to many of the western European countries with higher social safety nets and cheaper/free higher education.
I don't think cheap/free higher education would make any difference.
I teach high school, and the lines are fairly well drawn between rich and poor: The kids from higher socio-economic households are in the upper level classes -- AP classes, Calculus instead of Foundations of Algebra, Honors English instead of Basic English, Physics instead of Physical Science. Sure, we have kids in the lower level classes who could be successful in these upper classes, but they don't push themselves (and their parents don't push them) to excel academically.
Yes, you can find examples of poor kids who are knocking the top off academically (I was one of those kids), but they are the exception, not the rule. These kids do have a better chance at scholarships and financial aid, and that gives them a leg-up in the world. You can also find examples of rich kids who are lazy or underachievers, and they're more numerous than the Horatio Alger examples . . . yet they do exist.
The point: If you were to provide cheaper /free university education, it wouldn't make a significant difference in the number of kids who would graduate and go on to break class boundaries.
Personally, my parents decided to rent a small storage unit over the summer to store as much as possible locally. For several of the summers, either my sister or a friend also shared it, so the cost was more reasonable. But it made more sense then having to move it all, or replace it.
We did this for our daughter too. She's two hours from home, and it made financial sense for us. However, I don't personally know anyone else who made that choice -- and I don't know why.
The things we stored didn't have great value: Bedsheets and a large mattress pad, a lamp, a printer, winter clothing, a chair, some dishes, a broom, a small rug. But hauling them back and forth from school would've required probably two more trips "up the mountain" in my small car. Renting the storage building was kind of a break-even proposition for us.