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On the day that Donald Trump is inaugurated as US President for the second time, with JD Vance as his Vice-President, HEPI Director of Partnerships Lucy Haire reviews Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy – and asks what it can teach us about his attitudes to universities.
It is not a new publication, but it has taken on new significance. JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis was published in 2016, well before anyone had an inkling that the author would be the US Vice-President nine years later. I read this autobiography of Vance’s youth to try to better understand one of the most powerful men in the world.
Five things that saved JD Vance
The basic story of the first thirty or so years of Vance’s life reflects a challenging upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, a community in economic decline. Born to a mother struggling with addiction, Vance grew up amid instability, surrounded by school dropouts, joblessness and crime.
Vance attributes his escape from a stricken trajectory to five main themes.
First, his steadfast grandparents, especially ‘Mamaw’ who eventually raised him.
Second, the US Marines, which instilled discipline.
Third, his girlfriend and future wife, Usha, who refined his social skills.
Fourth, his own grit and drive.
Fifth, universities, of which JD Vance attended two.
He says of Ohio State University:
Ohio State’s main campus in Columbus is about a hundred miles from Middletown… Columbus felt like an urban paradise. It was (and remains) one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, powered in large part by the bustling university that was now my home. OSU grads were starting businesses, historic buildings were being converted into new restaurants and bars, and even the worst neighbourhoods seemed to be undergoing revitalization.
This passage could be taken straight from the pages of a US equivalent of UPP Foundation’s excellent Kerslake Collection on the economic and social benefits that universities have on their local communities. It chimes entirely with the sentiment in the UK’s Secretary of State for Education, Bridgit Phillipson’s recent letter to UK universities.
Vance explains how the majority of his education was paid for by the G.I. Bill, a US law that provides a range of benefits for veterans. Yet he still had to take on three jobs to pay for his living costs, a scenario which we know has become increasingly common in the UK. HEPI’s seminal report, the Student Minimum Income Standard, produced with the support of Technology1 in spring 2024, showed that student maintenance loans now fall well below what students actually need to live on. Students therefore have to look elsewhere for support. HEPI and AdvanceHE’s long-running annual Student Academic Experience Survey showed that for the first time in 2024, the majority of students in the UK now take on paid work to make ends meet.
Vance and his grandmother’s navigation of the financial aid forms highlighted their unfamiliarity with university bureaucratic processes, a case-study in inclusive admissions.
I had puzzled through those financial aid forms with Mamaw … arguing about whether to list her as Mom or as my ‘parent/guardian’. We had worried that unless I somehow obtained and submitted the financial information of Bob Hamel (my legal father), I’d be guilty of fraud. The whole experience had made both of us painfully aware of how unfamiliar we were with the outside world.
Furthermore, Vance discusses that, as a US Marine veteran, he was a mature student at Ohio State, so a few years older than most classmates. Some irritated him with their lack of real-world experience; one disparaged soldiers deployed to Iraq, where Vance had served. Vance decided that he wanted to accelerate his studies and arranged to fast-track his course so that he could graduate in just under two years.
This serves as a reminder about the challenges of ensuring that university classes are inclusive and accommodate diverse students. It also touches on the concept of fast-track degrees which remain quite rare in the UK.
Vance’s declared thinking about which law school to choose after Ohio provides still more food for thought for widening participation professionals. He didn’t consider Yale, Stanford or Harvard at first, the ‘mythical top three’, assuming he didn’t stand a chance of acceptance. But he changed his mind when he heard about a new law graduate hailing not from the ‘top three’ forced to wait tables for lack of other opportunities.
Vance still would not try for Stanford as it required him to obtain a personal sign-off from the Dean at Ohio State which he dared not request. He got into Yale where he clearly acquired imposter syndrome and conflicting identities: was he an Ivy League student or Hillbilly kid? He was unnerved by the sense of entitlement among his mainly upper-middle-class peers, by some snobbery among the academics and by the extensive networks his fellow students could tap into when it mattered.
He is nevertheless very appreciative of the whole experience, revelling in the stellar roster of famous visiting speakers, imposing architecture and the chance to edit the Yale Law Journal. He held his own academically, was taken under the wing of Professor Amy Chua and fell in love with one upper-middle-class student, Usha, his future wife. There are pages of his Yalie reflections on educational, economic and cultural upward mobility which foretell his move into politics.
I did not expect to find so many insights into the structure, funding and culture of the higher education system in this book. Some reviewers of Hillbilly Elegy say that it is not a completely true nor fair account of JD Vance’s experiences, that it over-emphasises the role of personal grit and determination in facilitating upward mobility, and that much of it is at odds with sentiments that Vance has expressed more recently. Nevertheless, if Vance is encouraging us to value higher education, recognize its crucial role for individuals and communities and to strive to get its systems and culture right for those with challenging backgrounds, then that is all to the good. Deep down, Vance knows that universities will help to Make America Great Again.
For more information about the US university system, take a look at this recent HEPI report supported by the Richmond American University London.