We do have quite a few young folks working here that are going to school at the same time and most are living on their own as well. Our company pays up to 5K/year tuition reimbursement which covers a good chunk at the local state school (I think it’s 9K/year tuition/fees for full time). We’re manufacturing with shift work and off shifts that work well for students. So if you’re making 35K/year and have 5K of tuition on top of that it’s not too hard to make enough to cover your living expenses in a LCOL area. Throw in a Pell and a state grant that has much higher income limits and you could end up like I was…getting paid to go to school.
The drawback is the time commit of working fulltime (often more than 40 hours a week with mandatory OT time). I struggled to schedule with science classes that had labs running into the evening and I wasn’t really part of the campus life at all. I just showed up for classes and left. I saved for my kids so they had the option of choosing a different school than our local ones and not having to work so much while going. But, it is certainly still possible to work your way through in our town.