Yale University - Banner / Pot Pourri Yearbook (New Haven, CT)

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llljilll llflg Lil if-'LJ ff 4 UD UUE U UEIU ' 'i' 'f' M 5 A , ,Z ,, 3 5 FINANCES . . . ln an attempt to evaluate the en- vironment which has created the 'lYale animal , the editors of the Banner sought a response to a question with doubts as to the number who would reply. Fully aware of the natural reluctance of most Americans to dis- cuss his personal rinances, they in- quired as to how you estimate your Veteran .... 1941 A551 l 'nl Prep school Vs High SCl'lO0l- ' Each symbol represents approximately 950 Yalemen annual family incomefl and listed four broad groupings: Qlj Less than 5E5,000, C21 35,000-5l0,000, Q35 il0,000, 5l0,000-iS20,000, Q45 SE20,000-550,000 Of the 400 men in the sample group Csee explanation, page one this sec- tionl only 20 omitted this question from their furnished replies, and the reader can best, We think, adjust for this number Where he sees ht. As the accompanying graph indi- cates, nearly 3X5 of those queried place themselves in the middle groupsv, the 35,000-520,000 bracket, While 3X5 of these, again, could be found in the 555,000-3l0,000 area. Above and below this dominant percentage were found exactly equal numbers, each ap- proximately lf5 of the total under- graduate body. In detail it Was noted that 4623 of Yalemen quoted a family income of over Sl0,000, which is, per- haps, the clearest indication of the Veteran ...... 1 948 W2 'K' 5, N X? r Qs D gps Q Xx X 154 i-QE V, 3 T lat

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THE BANNER SURVEY Take any Yale undergraduate you meet in G 51. H, and the chances are almost exactly 3 out of 5 that he is a veteran. The predominance of khaki's and 'lsea-stori-esll have lead to a pop- ular tendency to ascribe certain atti- tudes 'fnew to Yale as due to Hthis vet- eran elementf' The Banner Survey sought to investigate the ehiciacy of this assumption, and the results seem to indicate little difference between this and a Unormalll student body- except for a few years greater experi- ence. ln the first place nearly two-thirds of these veterans were actually in at- tendance in the Old Yale of pre-GI Bill days. Consequently it seems that the admixture of 'Knew blood has not yet been of tremendous sociological significance, particularly since the 2X3 figure quoted above does not include either those admitted Qbut who had not attendedj or those who had full inten- tion of becoming Yalemen, but had not gone -through the motions of appli- cation. The impact of the war on this group is an intangible which cannot be measured in specihc groups of ques- tions, but it might be interesting to check the background data unearthed by the Survey against a few often-eX- pressed popular impressions of the sort of man who is attending Yale at this time. The numerically dominant Htypell attending Yale today is a product of the small, private or 'fprepl' schools of the Northeast Cand a scattering of such institutions of the Far West and Nlid- dle Statesj. Sixty per cent are found in this group. It may surprise some, however, to discover that a fifth of the undergraduates can compare this uni- versity not only with their secondary schools, but with another college or university. Quite obviously the V-l2, V-5, and ASTP Training Programs account for a large proportion of this number. The fact that over lOO0 men chose to continue their education here rather than at another college or university indicates something of the drawing power of Yale on those who have been exposed to its life, and this raises an- other question which was touched upon on in the answers received from the sample group. Why did this group of 5,600 men originally come to Yale? Here too the response may seem a little startling to those who still think of the university as a Hhereditary elite, for to the question Did any of your fam- ily Cblood relativesj go to Yale? only a little over a third answered in the afiirmative. It seems important again to emphasize that this proportion in all probability would have been approxi- mately the same, war or no war.

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One-fourth are transferred from other colleges variety of preconceptions to be found in the group queried. To sum up the first part of our ex- amination of the sort of man to be dis- cussed, perhaps the most significant generalizations which can be made are that: QU Most Yalemen are veterans, but would have been attending this uni- versity regardless of governmental assistance. 12, hlost are products of the eastern prep school system rather than pub- lic or tutorial secondary education, and a surprising number have also attended other colleges or universities. Q3jThe income groups represented fall almost entirely within the top SLK, ofthe national figures, and most lie in the 55,000-520,000 group. SPENDING AND VICES . . . Today's Yaleman probably is little different in his personal life from most L 3' abil We - ,A X HARVARD young Americans of his general eco- nomic level. He is not the hard-drink- ing, high - living Ugaycollege - boy depicted in the cinebiographies of song writers, as the results of the Banner Survey quite clearly show. Two out of three Yalemen spend nearly all of their weekends Cthree or four a monthj in New Haven, even Below is graphed the approximate income differential represented in Yale Uni- versity in the spring of 1948. --.--