Ivy Leaguers Leave Lebanon First and Fast Through Private Security Firms

Just another example of the privilaged life of rich kids, in this case they get to live, while others may die. Also – shows how a private company can beat govt. agencies anytime.

GO USA!! it seems like the Katrina factor all over again

nothing here indicates individual wealth but institutional health. i applaud harvard et al for spending the cash necessary to protect its students. many students at ivy league schools receive scholarships to attend. these kids are lucky because their universities put money into security, not (necessarily / always) because they’re sucking silver spoons. don’t blame them for being in an opportune situation; that’s just stupid.

People should concentrate their concerns on the the lacking govt reponse (per usual) more than they should be concerned with the services that somebody’s study abroad tuition provides. Further – its highly likely that if Harvard wouldn’t have done it, one of the students’ parents would have called up their security firm and had it done. Maybe GW will be lucky and get the regional war he’s been gunning for!

More than half of Princeton’s students receive financial aid. Princeton does not require students to take out loans, instead providing grants and on campus jobs. The annual bill fits the needs and capabilities of the student and their family. As an alumn, I am overwhelming proud of this fact, and very glad Princeton provides such outstanding opportunities for our students, and the foresight to keep them safe.

What is going on you people at ABC and the comments section? I think you are very much uninformed regarding the SOS evacuation insurance. These policies are very cheap considering what they do. These policies are NOT just for IVY LEAGUERS, so please stop the class warfare, OK?
When students at my little Iowa university travel abroad for academic purposes, they ALL get insurance. A policy for a student is about $140 a month. It covers medical evacuation as well as evacuation in wartime as well. So, if you get really ill in some foreign hell hole – you will get flown back to the US/Europe. Or, if you are stuck in some proxy war between the US and Iran, SOS will come and get you!!!
I think that the students who DIDN’T get insurance were total idiots. My dear sweet Jesus….. they were going to BEIRUIT for gawd’s sake.
Students who did not get an evacuation policy were just trying to save money. I feel bad for these people, but they had a choice.
Please, end the class warfare and let’s consider the REAL war.

If I were a parent with a kid in a situation like this, I’d spend every penny I had to get them out. Thank god Havard, et al view their responsibilities as a parent and did not leave their students up to the government (look at this administration, would you?). The focus should be on the OTHER college who put their students in a situation like this and are doing nothing. Why are you trying to blame those who acted?

Most people will laugh at this, but there are those who understand. It’s the illuminati at work. Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are schools where U.S. presidents have been “tapped” – in other words, “chosen”. George W. Bush and many elected officials belong to secret societies connected with these schools – like the Skull and Bones society. These societies are the works of Masons – the unseen force behind “your” government. They control the money and protect their own.

the ivy league is perhaps the most misunderstood myth in american culture. to say that the it is only for the richest of the rich is malarkey. i go to yale, and sometimes i am so poor that i cant pay my cellphone bill on time. and there are many folks like me here.
what the situation does reveal, however, is that HYP are elite private institutions that function with greater finesse than our very government. simply put, it exposes just how slow and unproductive our government can be.
to the US government all i have to say is: “i dont wanna hear, i dont wanna know. please dont say youre sorry.”

The gentleman from Princeton shocked me, as did some other folks on this site, with the naive belief that “Ivy League” doesn’t correlate totatlly with “rich.” I teach at an Ivy League University and the scholarships we can offer barely make a dent in the crippling six-figure costs over foru years. A few poor kids, thank God, get a free ride, but middle-class kids are not coming to these schools, and, arugably, they’d be pretty selfish if they did, since it would mean their parents couldn’t afford vacations, nice clothes or a secure retirement.
What happened in Beirut was “The Titanic” all over again — only the rich got lifeboats.

“I teach at an Ivy League University and the scholarships we can offer barely make a dent in the crippling six-figure costs over foru years. A few poor kids, thank God, get a free ride, but middle-class kids are not coming to these schools … What happened in Beirut was “The Titanic” all over again — only the rich got lifeboats.”
I don’t know what university you teach at, but I haven’t observed such a disparity in class and income at Harvard, which bears the brunt of criticism whenever ivy league privilege is brought up. Most of my friends are in fact middle class and I myself pay next to nothing to attend to this school. In my experience, Harvard does a great job of enabling kids from all backgrounds to attend, and I don’t think it’s fair to characterize the Beirut evacuation as the rich exercising their privilege. I have a lot of middle class friends studying abroad right now and if it were them or me in danger, we’d be just as protected as our better off peers.
It’s unacceptable that students elsewhere aren’t given the same amount of protection, but I think many people miss the point: what schools like Harvard did for their students shouldn’t be considered a privilege but a basic expectation that any school should offer. It’s unfortunate that that’s not always the case.

Dear Prof– see the two comments above yours. I too attended an Ivy League school and can attest that I did not grow up wealthy, nor exactly poor, but in fact fall into the category of “selfish” middle-class kids that you claim never go to these schools. I do not know what prompts you to believe that all or nearly all of your students are extremely wealthy, but I would venture to guess that is an unfair generalization. My classmates came from a variety of backgrounds, yes, some of them wealthy, from private schools, others poor, on a full or partial scholarship, but many of them were like me– somewhere in between, making our way through on a combination of work-study programs, government-subsidized loans, private loans, private scholarships, and of course the invaluable assistance of our parents, none of whom, I can assure you, are destitute as a result. It is unfair to assume that all Ivy League students are at these schools simply because they come from wealthy families. The Ivy League opportunity is available to many bright young students of all financial backgrounds– and in my opinion can prove a great equalizer to those who are at good schools simply because of a legacy, like our president. In addition, as others have pointed out, many private colleges in the US are at least as expensive as Ivy League schools, and they should all have insurance policies that would provide their students with the sort of support one would expect in Lebanon. The fact that the Ivy League universities had this type of coverage and that their administrators saw fit to call students and advise them of it simply means they were better organized. There is not even any proof in this article that other schools did not have such insurance policies– no other school is named, nor are any students– yet another example of how people are often quick to say “look how lucky the rich are” without looking any deeper. What other schools had students studying in Lebanon? What security companies had they hired, if any? These strike me as key questions that should have been answered as part of a responsible piece of journalism rather than one designed to play on stereotypes without finding out where the blame should really lie for those students left behind.

And if the Ivy League schools hadn’t done their best, and students had been injured, the same people would be complaining that “rich” schools should have done better. The US governement is not in charge of personal security in Lebanon, so anything they do to get citizens out is a bonus and should be appreciated.

Good for Harvard, Yale, etc. or whoever paid for the evac insurance! Sounds like “SOS evacuation insurance” is a pretty good value for the money.
I just think this situation is more illustrative of what happens when an administration that HATES government programs gets to appoint people to run government agencies that have no stake in good performance. Say what you will about Clinton and the demos, but they at least tried to appoint effective leaders at FEMA, FDA, EPA, etc. Clinton is known to have BUILT UP FEMA only to have GW destroy it in a few years by appointing his cronies to run it. When I was a kid you always heard of how GOOD the US government was at taking care of citizens abroad. Heck, Reagan sent in the MARINES to Grenada to rescue a few med students (and of course topple an unfriendly government…).
So I don’t think we can say government HAS to be incompetant at protecting citizens abroad. It just has become that way recently. Perhaps we need to install an administration that believes in effective government rather than one that merely wants to tear it down in as many places as possible, and then say “See! Government is incompetant! Let’s ‘outsource’ everything to our friends in private industry!”

In this particular context, I agree that the criticism should be directed at the failure of the U.S. government to protect citizens living or studying abroad and not at Harvard and other schools that had the foresight to ensure that, should such a situation and need arise, they would be able to protect those in their care. Let’s remember that colleges act in loco parentis while students are in their care.
That said, there has been an astonishing (and I am tempted to say disingenuous) display of naivete on this blog. While one can always adduce examples of those from low income environments who enter the ivies, the notion that the majority of those in ivy league schools are not the beneficiaries of inherited wealth and privilege is laughable.
While not quite the preserves fo the wealthy as they once were, elite schools are still self-perpetuating engines of inherited privilege and wealth. A very fine article by Walter Benn Michaels on this very subject appeared not long ago in the magazine n+1. It is well worth reading.

When Katrina hit, Harvard invited all Tulane students to transfer there for the fall semester, apparently because Tulane is an expensive sister private institution, the vast majority of whose students do not come from Louisiana. Students at the several public-supported universities in New Orleans, whose student bodies were overwhelmingly from Louisiana and whose families therefore suffered much more from the hurricane, did not receive such invitations. Talk about class solidarity!
Also, see sociologist Zelda Gamson in a 1997 issue of Social Text in which she reveals that students at the most selective institutions come from families with incomes three and four times higher than those of students at the least selective institutions.

These evacuation programs are not expensive, so everyone who thinks these are reserved for the financially elite are selling themselves short (or playing the blame game instead of realizing their own responsibility to protect themselves). Yes, Yale, Harvard and Princeton are doing the prudent thing to provide this kind of program to their students…but these programs are also available to individuals. Check out the Medex Travmed program on http://www.insuremytrip.com that has a terrorism rider — it’s only $1 a day!
So stop complaining and dish out the money, that you would otherwise spend on trinkets and gifts, to be sure YOU will make it home. It makes me sick to see how quickly people point fingers and feel sorry for themselves without doing a little research.