to watch people get themselves a new, pardon me, asshole ripped.

This struck me as one of those.

Some--not all--foreign students are of families that are based in another country and have family businesses in those countries, the incomes of which are not subject to U.S. taxes. In college (reputable public university) I knew several well-off Chinese-American students from Hong Kong and Taiwan who had come to the States in grade school, lived in expensive neighborhoods, attended private schools or top public schools, and would go back to their childhood homes during summer and winter breaks. Their parents had jobs in this country, never anything that seemed especially lucrative, and the kids didn't really talk about the influx of overseas income--they commiserated with the rest of us on a budget--but every so often, they'd show up with expensive things that their parents or grandparents bought for them that I could never ask mine to buy for me.

It was a different experience than in high school, where the Chinese-American students/Americans of Chinese descent were suburban middle class as were most of the other kids.

(Apologies for the hyphenation. I'm not sure what nationality they would consider themselves.)

oops -- I meant The Simpsons! time to hit the hay.

what's wrong with watching The Simpson's?

they are not entitled to them. It's a sticky issue in grad school (and maybe not in undergrad given a different student profile) but foreign students are not entitled to guaranteed student loans -- little catch with having and F1 and J1 Visa. Have you ever noticed how many foreign grad students have RA or TA positions, or better how few don't.

It does give rise to an interesting and common observation among foreign students, which is that the student loan system is somewhat pernicious. In foreign universities a rise in tuition, even a small one can cause a riot (I've seen a few.) In the US it causes a queue at the financial aid office. In real terms, relative to the debt a US student graduates with, a 15% tuition hike in one of 2-3 years, or even all, is no big deal, though the year-on-year impact for someone say 2-6 years pre-college or grad school is pretty serious.

As for the TFB observation -- no surprise. They tend to concentrate in certain schools and indeed subjects, as well as certain cities. It is an oddity - and despite the suggestion of resentment, I do think, from personal observation that this concentration is a problem. The never ending internships as a key to certain jobs and increasingly professions reflect this reality. Put simply, Capitol Hill, various quasi public interest lobbying groups and law firms, even Federal agencies, Washington press-bureaus have come to depend on the eager, free to cheap interns, the dirt cheap labor -- hey it's free, why complain (places where I know this happens are the Washington Post, the New Republic, Time, and a few others.) But - and I do sometimes mingle in these circles (cf the University Club, Metropolitan Club, there used to be a bar called the Front Page, the Hawk & Dove, etc.), it does create a situation where you have a disproportionately influential group of people, concentrated in certain policy or policy influencing roles, who by US standards enjoy a very rare level of financial security, and that is a problem. The reason it is a problem is that it effects the way they think, both conservative (seriously) but also liberal-left.

By the way, and speaking as a lawyer (i.e., I have seen this up close), there is a bit of a misapprehension about the usual TFB or trustafarian. Few are so endowed as to be stinking rich, to show up at grad school in a brand new Porsche or BMW (and most in that category have better judgment), to wear Armani rather than GAP (though there was a little clique of 5-8 female members in my law school who shared a house who certainly did not do the inexpensive wear thing.) Rather most TFBs get their tuition covered and enough money to keep someone off the poverty line -- an amount about equivalent to the average industrial wage, or at least enough to top up a tiny income to the rent on a basic efficiency. Still, having tuition and living expenses covered creates a very different mindset from those who have to actually earn, weekly and monthly enough to pay tuition, to pay off student loans, to have a reasonably civilized living environment. Since the more intelligent (and most grad students are not stupid) are smart enough to keep their situation under wraps, their status as TFBs only becomes apparent as the disconnects become visible in what they say about others [non]choices or indeed the options they have.

Frankly I do not have anything to be bitter about -- I am pretty successful. But I am worried about the effect of this situation which is most visible in Washington DC.

This woman comes across as too self-obsessed, so I really don't care what she does. Work on your studies, perhaps?

That said, most people I know from Grad School at the U of Minnesota (and I don't know that many - only one circle) are basically not trust fund types. They are either from other countries, broke, or with children; and all work poverty wages (stipend) for years to exist. They are not guaranteed a job, or if they do get a job, it does not pay well for awhile, or forever.

Most go into academics. They call that the proletarianization of the professoriate. Some are making $40,000 a year, living in Providence, RI. The foreign ones sometimes escape paying anything, but the U.S. citizens get nailed for big loans. You tell me if that is worth it? With the recession, and the creation of internet universities, the guarantees of a degree are evaporating.

This has nothing to do with the letter, but .. bitter much?

This assumption that there is a plethora of TFBs in certain cities or Grad programs is beyond maddening! I found far more trustafarians and Gold Card babies as an undergrad in a state school than I ever did in graduate school. None of them had the stamina to make it into Grad school. As for smug jackasses, I've found them everywhere from coffee shops and classes to this thread. In my personal experience I found the highest number in the Art and Art History program at the school I was in, which made my switch into sciences academically difficult, but emotionally satisfying. Fortunately, I've worked very hard to remember that my experience was based on a limited N number, and I live with the hope that other art programs out there aren't filled with smug, talentless hacks with parents to mooch off of.

Just sayin.