Equal Access

September 9th, 2004

This story is provided by INSIDE Carleton

Christina Kelley Sriver ’93

Students didn’t talk much about personal finances when Christina “Kiki” Kelley Sriver ’93 was at Carleton. “We talked a lot about racial and gender diversity, but not economic diversity. Money seemed a taboo subject and just wasn’t discussed,” she says. So the English major from northern Minnesota kept her financial status to herself. To pay her Carleton bills, she worked numerous jobs during school and during breaks, and when necessary, borrowed money from her grandparents or did odd jobs in Northfield to cover extras like a spring break trip to Disney World, something her more affluent classmates took for granted.

“I really appreciated that Carleton’s tuition covered everything—I could participate fully in all the activities, including a study abroad program in London, without anyone knowing or caring what socioeconomic background I came from,” Sriver says.

“I would not have been able to go to Carleton without alumni generosity. It’s amazing to me still that Carls I never knew made it possible for me to attend.”

Since she never talked about her financial struggles, Sriver’s classmates may have been surprised to receive a letter from her a decade later telling her story. As a member of the Class of 1993’s 10-year reunion gift committee, she thought it was necessary to illustrate the importance of alumni giving to the College. “I think putting a face on need helps motivate people to give,” she says. In the letter, Sriver wrote about being a student at Carleton while her mother, who had given birth to Sriver at 16, attended Mayo Medical School. She confessed to being simultaneously embarrassed about her money situation and grateful for the financial aid that allowed her to attend Carleton.

The letter stressed that monies, particularly unrestricted gifts, from the annual fund allow students of merit from all financial backgrounds to meet on equal footing at Carleton. “I would not have been able to go to Carleton without alumni generosity. It’s amazing to me still that Carls I never knew made it possible for me to attend,” says Sriver, a leadership donor in contributing to her class’s reunion gift. “It’s why I give now. I want others like me to get a chance at a Carleton education.”

It’s more than her own background that has given Sriver perspective on educational equity. She taught secondary English in North Carolina for three years with Teach for America. “I saw kids truly in need,” she says. “I found that when I started feeding them breakfast, their test scores improved dramatically. Most had never owned a book before.” She later returned to Minnesota, working as a technical writer and editor with the Mayo Clinic and IBM, before moving to California, where today she is a senior editor with Google and writing her first novel.

Supporting the annual fund improves racial, gender, and economic diversity on campus, Sriver says: “If we want to make Carleton truly diverse, we have to make it accessible to academically bright students whose parents haven’t—for whatever reason—planned to send them to college from the time they were born, students whose life circumstances have prevented them from being financially able to afford Carleton.”

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