Walking along Buccleuch Street on a Sunday afternoon, I’m fifteen and absolutely buzzing to go home. Ive just spent an hour and a half at church, “the wee free” to be more specific, and if anyone I went to church with is reading this, I’m not slagging you off. I just wanted to go home and sleep. I turn the corner towards the old business school, and am jolted awake by four spine chilling words that I didn’t think people actually said.
“Rah, where’s my baccy?”
Before me, was a hundreds-of-people-long line for a coach, of pinks and greens and yellows and blues and obviously, there was also men there so grey suits, all heading off to the races. But not in the fun “chav” Ladies Day way, where you get dolled up, drink your day away in Prosecco and don’t actually care about horses. No no, these were professional poshos. These people were here to bet their student loans away with no consequences. These people didn’t laugh, they chortled. These people were Posh Students.
I thought, I’m definitely not staying here for uni. I can’t afford the rent in Edinburgh, but even if I could, my patience is shorter than my budget.
As someone who grew up working class in Edinburgh, I promise that Ive been on the posh student hater train before you were. Trips to the big swingpark at The Meadows with my grandparents when I was small, often involved a faux hippy trust fund kid balancing on a tightrope between two trees, always with their toes out for some reason. My first job, where I lasted three days, was in a city centre ice cream shop when I was seventeen, where the girl telling me what to do was a signet ring wearing posh student, who I once heard complaining that she wouldn’t get off work to see Tarquin’s Polo Match. I didn’t even know people actually played that. She then slagged me off for not having a “real” espresso machine at home.
But classism didn’t stop when I left Edinburgh, and it didn’t stop as my family got more comfortable. There’s no problem with being a student from a well-off family, or your parents helping you pay your rent, everyone has different circumstances. What is a problem is people’s attitudes towards working class people, however. I’ve seen people refuse to come over to people’s flats purely because they live in cheaper accommodation. I’ve seen people refuse to take the bus because its “dirty”. My coworker was yelled at through a drive-thru window because on his first day, he didn’t make one students iced coffee the right way, faced with an “I don’t care, make it again.” Once at work someone asked me “isn’t there a lot of stabbings there?” when I said I was from Clermiston. I’ve been called a spoon burner for being from Edinburgh before. And I’m sure everyone has at one point witnessed the less hostile, but definitely out of touch lack of understanding that you can’t afford to go out constantly, because the person asking doesn’t pay their own rent and you do.
Obviously, I found this a shock at first. But as time went on, I started to ask myself, what did I expect?
Lots of wealthy students treat running off to uni with mummy and daddy’s purse as an excuse to debut their brattiness to the world. Some people go through life with a lack of consequences, accountability, and exposure to the real world. If people are going to university having been brought up sheltered, they sometimes develop a lack of empathy. Stress on the word sometimes. But overall, it’s rough out here. Class divides isn’t something I expected to happen when many of us are living off the same SAAS loan. But then, when faced with snobbery, there’s an easy solution.
Talk back.
If some snob at uni, because they’re everywhere, decides to look down on where you’re from, your clothes, your accent, or that you can’t afford something, call them out. You’ll lose some connections, you’ll stop getting invited to some peoples pres, but you get to walk away knowing that you stood up for yourself. And believe me, thats easier to cope with than jumping on the bandwagon and talking down your hometown, or polishing up your speech so you sound like an old monarch but at least posh people understand you.
And on top of that, many university level snobs are the way they are because no one has ever told them no. So tell that posh colleague of yours that no, you’re not going to send them exactly £4.95 for a pint in spoons, you’ll just get them at the next round. That no, you’re not ok with them talking down where you’re from. Tell the classist poshos you know that the era of snobbery is over. Don’t let them get away with it again.
Correction: This article was amended on the 11th of October 2024, with the mention of certain parties removed.
Featured Image Credit: Jess Urquhart