http://www.vox.com/2015/8/28/9220705/college-working-map
http://chronicle.com/article/Minimum-Wage-Work-Alone/232675/
Very good!
This needs to be made a sticky thread! It should be at the top of the parents Forum.
Young man, Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I did it when I was your age, so you can do it, too. /Sarcastic.
I wonder what is the root reason that the previous generation had the chance to make it in this way but this generation do not even have a fighting chance.
Have we become poorer as a society? Our society as a whole decides that the colleges should be institutes which have the interest of “the have” in their “(non-profit) business model”? (I know, it is strange to put the two words “non-profit” and “business” together here.) An evidence here: Some colleges, in order to thrive (or just to survive?), have include more and more shining and $$$ facilities that look like a country club.
“I wonder what is the root reason why the previous generation had the chance to make it in this way but this generation do not even have a fighting chance.”
Simple answer- The cost of going to college today.
There is no comparison to what it costs to get an education today vrs 30-40 years ago!
DH was able to work his way through Stanford in the 70’s with the addition of some small college loans.
NO WAY that could happen today.
Students (and their parents) have years to prepare for college financially, yet few do. It doesn’t all happen suddenly, although people like to pretend that it does.
One of the things students should do more often is to develop a skill that yields a higher rate of pay than minimum. Would you rather spend 8-5 working at the copy center for a gross of $70, or make $200 teaching private piano students between 9 and 2?
I disagree. There are so many holes in this ‘analysis’, I don’t know where to start.
The root reason is that public subsidies for universities have eroded substantially over time. A contributing factor is also that real wages have declined.
UC tuition was something like $7k back in 2007, now it’s around $13k. Minimum wage in 2007 was $5 now it’s $9.
yeah, but the UC tuition price is zero for many of its students. Thus, it only takes one minute of working at minimum wage to pay the bill.
I agree, UC passes all sort of initiative to help people with income under $80k but they raise tuition. I think they are raising UC minimum wage now and somehow I’m sure the tuition is going up. Even thought Janet P. claimed it won’t have any effect on UC tuition or expense. I don’t believe one word.
California is the among the most progressive states when it comes to subsidizing university education, and the disparity is much greater in other states.
Nevertheless, the public subsidy for UC students has been reduced (in real dollars) from $24,000/student to $12,000/student over the past 20 years.
Administrative costs and student services will rise because they are raising minimum wage.
“UC tuition was something like $7k back in 2007, now it’s around $13k. Minimum wage in 2007 was $5 now it’s $9.”
I’m not from CA, but a quick google search tells me that minimum wage in 2007 was $7.50.
933 hours in 2007 (roughly 18 hrs/wk) as to 1,444 hours now (roughly 28 hrs/ wk)
Even so, I think the point is that it was a bit easier for us (parents) to pay our way through school and a lot easier for our parents to pay their own way through school with minimum wage jobs. So, you would need to compare wages / tuition from, the 1990s to now and from the 1970s to now for an accurate picture. At least for my state, it is a huge difference.
Perhaps, but California is not that rare. There are quite a few states where tuition/fees are much below sticker for the low income; alternatively, unlike California, other states offer plenty of merit discounting for grades/test scores. Heck Georgia offers merit money to every instate HS grad with a 3.0, and even more merit money for high schoolers with a 3.7.
UVa meets full need and used to be no-loan, but still is a really good deal. I believe Carolina is also generous with its low income students.
OTOH, PA is not.
In any event, many college students just do not pay sticker, so the supposition of the piece is highly suspect. Moreover, it ignores community colleges. Now I realize that jucos are the bane of existence on cc, but I would have expected better from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The point is that “Chronicle of Higher Ed” posted what is really an opinion piece by those with an agenda, likely political. Its devoid of critical thinking, which is surprising coming from a journal focused on higher ed.
Post #13, my googling must have gone haywire. You are correct it was not $5.
You are conflating a lot of different things into the discussion. The increase in sticker price is what is in question, and whether most students have to pay sticker price is a separate topic.
Perhaps a student in California from a family not eligible for financial aid cannot get parental support for college … Perhaps a student in Georgia has a 2.9 GPA … Perhaps a student exhausted financial aid eligibility on a BS/BA degree and now wants to return to college to earn a different degree …
In all of these cases it was once possible to work one’s way through a university (not community college) on unskilled labor wages. It is now no longer possible. The other issues you bring up don’t change that.
Minimal wage work can hardly to keep you survive, not to mention to pay for college.
On the contrary. I’m saying that the title of this thread is uniformed, as are the authors of the article.
What difference does it make to compare the Minimum Wage relative to college tuition if the poor don’t pay sticker? (The middle class and wealthy don’t care much about minimum wage, so its really only relevant to the poor: ‘work your way thru college’.) Thus, with critical thinking skills, (and not blind political? motives), the whole concept is meaningless. They have setup a fallacy, and then run some numbers to prove their fallacy.
Now, if the authors wanted to make a relevant point, they should have adjusted state-by-state net tuition price, after state aid and after Pell Grant. Of course, that would have blown up their whole argument, with the exception of a few states, like PA, that have high sticker prices, even for the low income.
Any college prof in Econ would have not graded this work highly.
@bluebayou so you haven’t seen any middle or upper class posters on these forums whose parents believe their kids can work their way through school they they did?