Quote:
Originally Posted by Low D Flat
The comparison is important at schools where most members can choose to live in. At Alabama, even for the chapters with the big new houses, most members don't have the option, and only four of the big houses are operating. A fair number of members never get to live in at all (the sophomore class is bigger than the house capacity for the biggest houses, plus the officers have to live in). So the vast majority of members are paying the out-of-house fees, on top of their living expenses, for either three or four years. It's a significant cost.
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That’s true – though many who have the opportunity to move in elect to live off-campus (juniors and seniors).
IMO, the impression the article leaves by including the discussion of the 14-member multicultural sorority is that the sorority failed because they did not have a house, implying an inequity or lack of support from the institution because they were non-white.
And that the NPC Greeks are elitist via the cost of their "clubs," and that presumably this is a barrier to race.
It may certainly be a barrier (it is a barrier to any student who cannot afford it). I did a brief search for some demographics on the cost issue and tripped across this study which (among other issues) explores cost, social class perception, and familial influences (who knew the Association of Fraternity/Sorority Advisors had a research journal?):
ASIAN AMERICAN WOMEN’S PERSPECTIVES ON HISTORICALLY WHITE SORORITY LIFE: A CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND CULTURAL CAPITAL ANALYSIS
http://afa1976.org/Portals/0/documen...20Fall2012.pdf
I don't see a way to make the cost of a
social organization fair to those (of any race) who cannot afford the cost -- or even separate it from the social class perception the (OP) article perpetuates.