Maybe it won’t be today. Or tomorrow, or next week.

But that Wharton kid in your Spanish class — the one in a polo shirt, with vague I-bank connections and a slightly funny smell — will get better-looking.

It may take five or ten years. Maybe it’s just a smidge better.

But it might be enough — for wedding bells.

Look, you’re probably more worried about Valentine’s Day 2008 than 2018. And who can blame you? Have a lovely day and avoid Rx.

Still, as an alum blogging from the future, here’s a different view of gold-digging than Kanye or Simeon.

Originally, I’d focused on the Ivy alumna’s plight. Entering my late 20s, many thriving female friends can’t find the ambitious, well-off partners they want. Take Miranda, dumped for being too successful…wait, I’m confusing reality with Sex and the City. Again.

Whatever. My Valentine’s Day post — “Wharton women: Prepare to be alone” — practically wrote itself.

… until I read about “boy toy” and “sugar mama” meet-and-greets. Or heard of a man getting divorced when grad school ended, after wifey paid his tuition.

As women increasingly take high-paying jobs, is gold-digging back — with men now chasing security?

Curious, I anonymously surveyed 45 friends; most attended Penn or similarly selective schools, and many had graduate degrees.

Turns out male respondents didn’t care about a partner’s income. But women?

Several who’d wanted a rich spouse — but ended up better-off than their partners — downgraded income’s importance. Wrote one consultant-turned-breadwinner, “My graduate degree [lets us] live well enough just with me… I don’t need anyone else’s money.”

However, most alums felt that a partner’s income now mattered as much — or more — than in school.

One Ivy-educated lawyer said she’d never marry for money, but “wouldn’t marry someone who couldn’t support me (and a potential family)…There’s [no] magic number, but that is simply a fact.”

Another consultant once felt “too liberated and intelligent” to consider a partner’s income, but now realized her achievements “led both of us to resent the other… [with] all the financial pressure… piled on me.”

Yikes.

Respondents did agree: focus on education before wealth. Wrote one woman, “it’s more important… to marry someone well-educated than someone who’s rich, but often it leads to the same people.” Called assortive marriage, pairing off by schooling (and ultimately, wages) is on the rise — and as a Penn student, you’re totally setting up for it.

Consider: Going from Penn to a leading firm, not-profit, or grad school shrinks your social network to a tiny, elite pool — especially because admissions and HR officers weed out applicants better than Match.com. Like many alums, my friends (and partners) generally come from a mix of ex-schoolmates and co-workers (Raising social inequity issues, which is totally Vaughn or Eric, not me).

So returning to that smelly Wharton student. Sure, good money might increase their future appeal (as would better, now-affordable hygiene). But with an even-stronger factor — the shared bond of a Penn experience — who knows what romance could bloom? Sometimes, it takes a decade to make an impression.

Tags: love, marriage, the dolla dolla billz y'all

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Penn, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.