Next time someone says students should work their way through college, show them this map

dfbdfb
Sat, 05 Sep 2015 20:40:12 +0000

Kids can still work their way through college.

You need to plan better, save more, work smarter and you still might have some debt, but just because costs have increased doesn’t mean that prospective students should give up.

So just how much are you expecting them to work?

Are you expecting them to work full- or nearly full-time? And to do that for the extra two to four years it’ll probably take them to graduate, at least if they want to keep their grades up? And there’s really, really good evidence that if students have to go to college part-time, their chances of ever actually graduating drop precipitously—so then they’ll be out a few years of focusing on their career and still have no degree to show for it.

Or if they’re supposed to go to school full-time, how many hours per week do you expect them to work without flunking out?

Going to college is a full-time (at least) job. Many of the people talking about how it’s allegedly possible to work your way through college seem to be forgetting that there’s a limit on the number of hours available for working during any given week.