“THREE months after starting college, Brooke Evans found herself without a place to live. She was 19. She slept in libraries, bathrooms and her car. She sold plasma and skipped meals. It was hard to focus or participate in class, and when her grades fell, her financial aid did, too. Eventually, she left college and began sleeping on the street, in debt, without a degree.” …
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/opinion/hungry-homeless-and-in-college.html
Oddly, this scenario is not really new. While I never slept in a car or homeless shelter, some of my time in undergraduate school in the early eighties were spent hungry for days on end, without heat (in northern Maine), and stressed about basic needs. I could not rely on family for any financial help. For a while unemployment was close to 20% so finding a part time job was no easy task. For me, however, the thought of quitting college never entered my mind as a possible solution, and my abject poverty was believed to be temporary, there was only up to go from where I was. And, it’s not like I graduated with a potentially lucrative degree either, it took perseverance, learning how to do a lot of things myself, graduate school, debt and then massive focus on getting out of debt as quickly as possible. It was a long road.
My daughter is very fortunate to be having a very different experience.