3.

“I went to Columbia University for graduate school, and most of my classmates were rich. Most of them were lovely people, and money wouldn’t come up in class so much, but it was usually in nonchalant conversations and outings that I noticed a difference. For instance, when we’d go book shopping, my rich classmates would drop hundreds of dollars at the bookstore (we were all in a writing MFA program) and leave with a huge stack (mind you, these weren’t required reading books; just books for fun). Whereas, I was constantly budgeting and living on my own with no help, so I would buy one or two (cheap!) books.”

“Another conversation where this was apparent was when we discussed summer plans between first-year and second-year, and everyone detailed all the lavish vacations they were about to embark on and how they NEEDED a break. When they asked what I was doing, I said, ‘I’m going back home to Texas to work for the summer.’ One of their responses was, ‘Ew!’ Yeah, man, some of us have to work to earn a living.”

—Anonymous, 37, Texas