fair question ED, but the short answer is that I really haven’t seen much on cc in that regard – but maybe I’m hanging out on all the wrong threads! – and it is often times due to a divorce, and the non-custodial parent just doesn’t want to pay anything. And for such (selfish?) parents, there is no solution, and no article in the Chronicle of HE is relevant. (They are just using the excuse, ‘work your way thru school,’ as an excuse to not contribute. We could eliminate the minimum wage and they’d still assume the same position.)
OTOH, for those kids, community college is a great option – something ignored by the authors.
Spend some time on the FA forum, bluebayou. You may not see the parents very often but you see many, many, MANY kids whose parents refuse to pay a cent. You see, verbatum, “My dad paid his way and he expects me to do the same.”
^ About a year ago a person I know (highly educated, has a good job) told me that she and her H expect their two children to pay their own way for college when the time comes.
Why would I show someone a map who says something that is obvious?
Of course students who can’t afford college should find ways to afford it by some combination of working, going to a CC for 2 years and then transferring, not going to the state flagship, etc. etc.
I don’t know what you mean when you say the title and the authors are “uniformed”. Are they wearing uniforms? It doesn’t make any sense.
The article clearly states its purpose and methodology and shows the results in context, and then gives its conclusions. I don’t think an Econ professor would bring an axe to grind like you have and judge the article outside of its stated context.
The authors clearly state in two different places that financial aid would be an important variable, just not one they are considering in this analysis. They state: “We’re also not accounting for financial aid, which would mitigate the cost for many students …” and “That shows how difficult the math behind college accessibility can be — and why financial aid is such a difference-maker.” It seems like you didn’t even read the article.
The student from a poor family is generally expected to "work his/her way through college" to cover the remaining costs after receiving a reduced net price through financial aid grants. This is not so different now compared to a generation ago in states with good in-state financial aid, or at private schools with good financial aid, but may be more of a stretch when the available colleges now have higher (in real terms) net prices than they did a generation ago (which would be more like the second scenario below).
The student from the wealthy family that won't pay now finds it generally unrealistic to "work his/her way through college" if s/he did not earn big merit scholarships. A generation ago, many in-state public universities were cheap enough, and high school graduates paid enough, that someone with no support from parents and no financial aid eligibility was much more likely to be able to "work his/her way through college" then than now.
The assumption in this that everyone attends the state flagship is very slanted. In fact most go to a local CC or college and live at home. Only a small % can go to the flagship in most states. And working for min wage–only if you have zero skills. Most people can wait tables or bartend /serve etc and do much better than that. Yes it is hard and most have to borrow some but at least be closer to reality.
I met someone this summer who has the attitude that they got scholarships and worked their way through college and their kids can also. 4 kids, first was able to receive a full tuition scholarship to local school, lived at home and has a good job. The next 2 have floundered around, not as smart as the first. Working at minimum wage jobs and trying to go to community college. Neither was able to do it. One got married young and is working, the other is taking time off to try and save money to attend college while working at a home improvement store. (4th still in HS).
Meanwhile the mother regaled me with stories of their travels, the new convertible her H bought her because she was so sad when her mom died, the condo they were planned on buying in Florida (and how she was going to remodeled it).
I could barely contain my rage. She was a friend of a friend. I hope never to have to be in her company again.
£9,000 is about US$13,769 or so according to http://www.oanda.com . State universities in the US often have tuition and fees that are that amount or lower for their state residents. Of course, they receive subsidies from the state governments, much like Oxford receives subsidies from the UK government.
Living costs are not included in the above numbers. Oxford estimates £8,727 to £12,894 (US$13,351 to US$19,726) for the 9 month academic year, so the total is not too different from what state universities in the US cost for their state residents. (Of course, books and some other expenses need to be considered as well.)
re Min wage- …zero skills. Even NMS HS grads have few skills that can translate into better paying jobs. MOST HS grads lack skills to get better than minimum wage jobs, being in sports, music and academic activities plus a high gpa and test scores will not give you job skills- they prepare you for more schooling. Those who do prepare for better paying jobs straight out of HS likely are not going to college.
Even the state nonflagship U’s are expensive. Some states, such as Wisconsin, have mainly tech schools and not community colleges that substitute for the first two years of college. Now Madison’s has changed its focus, but not the majority of the rest of the state’s tech schools.
The problem is that most people who say “Work your way through college like I did back in the 60s/70s/80s,” don’t understand (unless they have kids in college themselves, and even some of those parents don’t understand) how the cost of college has increased disproportionately to the cost of most other things (besides healthcare. . .)
Yes, minimum wage has gone up. It is 2.5 times what it when I was in college in the early 80s, but if you look at inflation adjusted wages, http://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/minimum-wage-since-1938/ you can see that the $3.10-3.35/hr I made back then is quite comparable to today’s minimum wage (value of about $7.50-8.50/hr).
I went to a state university (not flagship, but “public ivy”/not commuter school) and the total cost for tuition/fees/room/board my freshman year was about $3,500, which increased to about $4,000 by senior year. I worked many hours at minimum wage jobs during high school, in college, and 50+ hours a week in the summers. I was able to “work my way through college,” as did my sister and many other students–some taking out very small loans if they weren’t so frugal or didn’t work as many hours during the school year or hadn’t saved money during high school. That might still be possible today IF college costs had increased by about 2.5 times along with the general inflation rate. In that scenario, my college would now cost $8,500 -10,000/year to attend, including tuition/fees/room/board. What does it actually cost for in-state students? Just looked it up: $25,000. That means that college costs have gone up about 3 times as much as everything else. That’s why kids can’t work their way through college. It is not the minimum wage.
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.
I’m sorry–I didn’t mean to imply that NO ONE can work his/her way through college. But it is much harder for students to do that today than it was back in the 60s-80s. Back then you could work minimum wage jobs part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer and earn enough for tuition/fees/room/board to go to big state u.–it was very commonly expected by parents and completely doable. I’m sure a lot of CC parents did this. But today, very few kids could earn enough to do this. It is not because minimum wage is low. It is because college costs are disproportionately inflated. Very few can earn enough for tuition, let alone room/board. But, yes, you could still work, live with your parents, and pay for community college tuition. Where there is a will, there’s a way.
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.
Note that $8,500-$10,000 per year is the high end of expected student contributions at colleges with good financial aid for high-need students (some of the best-financial-aid schools have lower expected student contributions, like $4,000-$5,000 or so). So high-need students at colleges with good financial aid are expected to “work [and perhaps borrow with federal direct loans] their way through college” up to about that amount.
But if the parents are higher income (i.e. resulting in less or no financial aid), but do not contribute (note that allowing the student to continue to live at home for free is contributing), then the student will find it very difficult to “work his/her way through college” without starting with a large merit scholarship. The same applies to students who do not get into good-financial-aid colleges. If the parents will contribute by allowing the student to live at home, but not otherwise, then a student in this situation who lives near low cost community colleges and in-state public universities may have that option to “work his/her way through college”.
But such options are less numerous than a generation ago, when a student with no support from parents, living on his/her own, may have been much more likely to be able to “work his/her way through college” at any in-state public university.
I worked about 28 hrs a week, on average, not including Summer. Most of the students I knew worked 10-20 hrs a week and if they didn’t graduate on time it was for some other reason.
Not everyone is that disciplined, able to make their class schedules work to fit in a job with that many hours (many jobs may not be flexible with work hours) or able to time manage that successfully. While there are many more potential telecommuting type jobs (telemarketing, etc) than in past decades, juggling so many work hours with a rigorous course schedule may be challenging for many.
What a bunch of hooey. Comparing to the past based upon minimum wages. I doubt there are many examples back then of people working their way through on minimum wage. Those of us who worked our way through college tended to go part-time and worked full-time ‘real’ jobs. (or like DW actually did both full-time) Even more employers today will subsidize tuition for their employees. It is much easier to do it now than it was back then when only a few employers had that type of benefit.
Costs have risen. That is definitely a problem. It is an economic problem brought on by public dollars chasing other public dollars.