telephones, insurance, transportation home, summer living at home, car, clothing, vacations. Some scholarships don’t include room and board
Not every kid will have these paid by parents. Mine didn’t as she’d always paid her own phone, didn’t live at home even in the summer, had insurance through the school (which we did pay for).
When she got a job her senior year, plus her post grad earnings, she was definitely over the 50% threshold of supporting herself. She probably was for the year before that too as she earned money in the summer and her overall expenses were pretty low so to get to the 50% mark didn’t take much in earnings (and the other expenses weren’t coming from me, but from her jobs and student loans).