lass divide is something that we don’t like to talk about at Dartmouth. It works invisibly, dividing our campus into categories we didn’t even know we fell into. Over half of our fellows here at Dartmouth pay full fare for their tuition. The rest receive anything from a few loans to fully covered financial aid.

I’m not making a judgment call. This isn’t meant to be a populist rant of the haves against the have-nots. Being affluent enough to afford a Dartmouth education is not something these students have chosen. In fact, their tuition money helps pay for so many of the great programs here—and, in part, the financial aid of the rest. But these aren’t even the main reasons why we shouldn’t judge in this regard, favorably or unfavorably. The main reason is that they are fellow students. They are not “they.” They are part of us—part of the Dartmouth community.

We all go to class. All of us pretty much eat the same grease-filled food at FoCo and at the Hop. We all walk across the Green, and in the spring, we all wade across the melted snow. These are things that bind us together. They help define us as members of the Dartmouth community. We dwell on a college campus that grants all of us the opportunity to have our voices heard in the classroom and community as students—as peers.

But despite all of this, our Dartmouth experiences are not all the same. Who exactly are the ones normally participating in Greek life or SA? And who normally mans the DDS stations, or the library help desks? You can always point to exceptions to the rule, but these questions retain their importance.

“But our house has this person who isn’t able to pay but gets scholarships from alumni and our house fund and…” say some fraternity and sorority chairs. I’m sure every house has some sort of system that attempts to make Greek life more inclusive, to a greater or lesser extent, but it doesn’t counter the systemic problems in our social life derived from these types of organizations.

Social and house dues will always deter the potential low-income rushee to some extent. Even though there are many “scholarships” or “extra duties” that can cover these social dues and house dues, how many students want to be second-class citizens in their own house? Maybe we don’t feel that a few extra duties during parties or a few more cleaning rounds in the dingy frat bathroom separates us. Do we really pass no judgment on those forced to do it? And do the students who perform these “extra duties” in order to participate in Greek life really feel no different?

Even if we believe we are somehow beyond judging along those lines, that still doesn’t solve the fact that there are still many low-income students who decide not to rush in the first place. They’re busy in the library, FoCo, Topside, Alumni Gym, or wherever they work to pay for Dartmouth. Many balance their jobs, their classes, and pong very well.

Others are not so lucky. One of my friends worked at both FoCo and the Hood Museum Shop, moving from one job to another to another all day long. While sitting in that store that no one goes into, he did his homework or played with the trinkets no one bought. And for the rest of the day, he gave students their “chicken,” “dinner special,” or “that,” behind the glass at FoCo, slopping our wet, oily meals onto plastic containers and dinner plates. Even if he wanted to participate in Greek life, would he have been able to find the time?

Maybe his case is rare. But it’s far more common than we acknowledge.

So after all of this, you’re probably asking, “Now what?” Well, now that we see this problem, this issue, this thing that we loathe to speak about, what’s my grand solution?

How do I propose that we ameliorate the situation so that this division disappears and Dartmouth truly becomes an idyllic community?

Outreach, perhaps. More alternative social spaces. Maybe one of the half-dozen solutions that have been bouncing around for so long. But they’re also the point and the problem. We have potential alleviations, if not solutions to our divisions here at Dartmouth. The problem is they have gained little to no ground.

It isn’t the incompetence of SA or the hostility of the fraternities or even the glacial pace of the college administration. These may contribute in part to the lack of a solution, but these are certainly not the biggest obstacles. The greatest enemy is our silence on the issue.

We aren’t going to eliminate income differences, or for that matter, the greater hardships faced by some less affluent students. We aren’t going to make us all the same. And, at least for diversity on our campus, we shouldn’t become mirror images of each other.

However, there are still divisions between haves and have-nots—the elites and the non-elites. It’s more than the groups we choose to be with. The tragedy is that these groups are chosen for us. In a college where we are supposed to learn and work without class, race, gender, or wealth barriers, we should strive to close these gaps and make us a community instead.