I think no matter what school, there is going to be a wide range of socioeconomic representation. My D had friends whose parents were CEOs of companies and friends who had loans and were really struggling. And it’s hard to tell who is who, especially in the beginning, because most students are trying hard to fit in and not make anyone else feel badly about what they can and can’t afford.
I personally don’t think a kid from a well-off family is going to feel like a “broke scholarship kid” even if they aren’t getting an allowance from mom and dad. My daughter was very aware of her privilege.
Yeah in NYC, you have to learn how to floor it to accelerate 0-40 on a suicide ramp to merge onto the FDR, while fighting for merge space against drivers who won’t yield, while simultaneously staying in your 12’ wide, no shoulder, lane.
Related to work, and a budget. In college, students aren’t in classes from 8-3 five days a week. In addition to budgeting money, a part time job helps them budget their time.
But as I’ve said a few times…whatever you decide to give your kids for spending money…is your family decision and is fine for your family.
I think folks here are just pointing out some alternatives.
I know several families who did give their college kids an allowance…BUT at the same time expected their college kids to have jobs. Remember, having a job gives your kid an employer for job recommendations in the future. Another not financial benefit that is important.
The reality is that we all know people who are broke on a 500K per year salary, and people who seem to manage a fine lifestyle on significantly less. I’m sure we all know people who seem to specialize in dumb financial decisions (the HELOC to put in a fancy patio, built in bar and pizza oven when they already own the most expensive/jazzed up house on the block) and others who seem to live under the radar with modest lifestyles but then you discover that they are paying for not one but TWO elderly parents to live in a “bells and whistles” assisted living facility which even the affluent folks in your town claim is unaffordable.
So I’m all for financial education-- early, often, and repeated as frequently as necessary.
I’m also a BIG proponent of jobs- HS, college, summers, etc. The tide seems to have turned towards impressive sounding internships, but all the employers I’ve worked for (and the one I work for now) understand the “meat and potatoes” of the work world. Serving food in a diner; taking tickets in a movie theater, cashier at a theme park, scooping ice cream on a truck at the local park. The time-honored ways that teenagers earned money before every employment situation had to involve a fancy title even if the work involved making coffee and putting paper in the copy machine.
I agree that having a kid earn their own spending money serves multiple purposes, even if the parent has to supplement occasionally or declare that “you buy your own shampoo but we’ll pay for contact lens solution” (i.e. not all toiletries are created equal).
I will offer one bit of a reality check- it is very tempting and common to assume that your kid has automatically absorbed your own spending patterns and values. This is often incorrect! You assume that your kid has watched you put the vegetables and meat and beans into the slow cooker before you leave for work for a tasty, frugal and nutritious dinner and has decided “what a great way to maximize my grocery budget”. And then you realize that this kid can knock back 5 double espressos a week from the cute cafe around the corner, and considers sushi one of the building blocks of life and the kid is spending more on take-out for 1 than you spent to feed a family of 5.
They’re going to make mistakes. And that’s why having them make a few hundred dollar mistakes now (they’ve blown their budget by Tuesday and have no spending money until they get their paycheck a week later) is so much better than the multi-thousand dollar mistakes that happen IRL once they are out of college.
We all would like to think that our kids are too busy in the library, lab, studio, etc. to have a parttime job in college because “doing well” is their job. I’m here to tell you that this is a canard started by college kids who would rather binge watch 6 episodes of Friends with their own buddies than serve omelets in the cafeteria which means a 6 am start to their workshift.
Living in northeast NJ, I’m glad to know my kids can drive anywhere (including NYC, my husband took our youngest daughter to Long Island for a soccer tournament, she had a permit and asked to drive home, gps took them through manhattan). I have family from LI who moved to CA and their kids struggled driving when coming back to visit. My grandparents lived in Jersey city so I learned some tough driving early on.
Agree with so much of your post and also wanted to push back on this idea.
While many students can and do part work and study very effectively, there are students and situations where that doesn’t make sense.
One of our children has a documented learning disability and is killing it at college. One reason they are killing it, though, is because they don’t have a part time job during the school year with all the attendant extra time/stress/bandwidth that goes with that. Instead, they work full time during the summer and we do supplement their spending money during the school year.
I’ve been very happy to see that many colleges are moving away from having students work in the cafeteria or as cleaners in dorms as work-study students point out how often those jobs are looked down upon by other students and create effectively a two-tier system of who gets what kind of work on campus (those who need the money get scut work, those who can afford to pick and choose can take TA positions and other more ‘prestigious’ work).
This is unfortunately the situation we’re in. My wife and I have taken a “use your judgment” approach to spending on our credit card. Neither kid would even consider making a large purchase without discussing beforehand, but there are plenty of $7 coffees, $18 salads, $15 paperbacks from Barnes & Noble, and for the younger one $5 candy purchases at 7-11, that collectively have created a certain “blindness” to the value and scarcity of money.
I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to get my wife on-board with having my daughter get a job in college. Neither she nor I worked in college, and her recollection was that the work-study kids were forced to take the crappiest jobs bussing tables in the cafeteria literally cleaning up after the rich kids. I’m also of the view that if we’re paying $90k/year for an education, I want that opportunity maximized – which means taking advantage of classes, research opportunities, clubs, networking, etc., rather than working as a minimum wage cashier.
On the other hand, I also see the opportunity to use college as truly the launching pad into adulthood, which of course includes financial independence. For kids who come from affluent backgrounds, this likely means the kid has to take a step back in terms of quality of life, since few recent college grads except those lucky enough to land an analyst job at McKinsey or Goldman, will be able to drop immediately into upper middle-class life. Maybe the constraints of a budget will result in frugality for life, a strong drive to achieve professional success, etc.
Quite a bit for me to think about and discuss with my wife.
Not every campus job involves waiting on other students.
One of my kids got what was billed as a short term job fact-checking a professors article. It paid significantly more than minimum wage, and the kid got it for two reasons-
1- Kid had done fact-checking in HS for the student newspaper
2-Nobody else applied.
The job took about three weeks, but then became a “however much time you can give me” job for that same professor. Editing articles, turning five pages of notes into a grant application, abstract research for a book proposal. Kid was not interested in the professor’s field (other than learning enough to actually be helpful with the content) BUT- the professor was responsible for kid getting an overseas fellowship (kid said “I’m not qualified”. Professor said “Don’t be ridiculous” and picked up the phone to call a colleague at the other institution).
Different kid had the choice of “cash or credit” (the U’s policy was that all undergrad research positions could be taken for either pay or course credit in that discipline). Kid picked cash but had the option of switching to credit if there was a particularly challenging semester and would need the credits more than the money.
Once you shift your mindset away from “campus jobs are something that disadvantaged students do” to “campus jobs are great for time management, cash management, learning new skills, and developing fantastic relationships with faculty members who often go the extra mile for students they work with” the dynamic will change in your home!!!
Ironically, at some campuses, some of the best paying jobs are working as “cater-waiters”. But not serving students- working in the faculty club, working alumni events, serving at Board of Trustee meetings. I know kids who have parlayed their “show up in a white shirt and black pants” jobs into actual, real professional opportunities. The heavy-hitters who sit on the U’s investment committee understand that students working as waiters at their quarterly dinners do not aspire to a full time career in food service.
Lol. Show this thread to your wife. . My kids went to school when younger with the likes of the grandkids of the Zelles, Pritkzers and Rahm Emanuel kid’s when he worked in the White House among other’s. I understand peer pressure (usually from the parents actually). As stated even with engineering they will have plenty of time. PM me if you want to engage further and can tell you what my kid did and the internship /job opportunities that followed. Neither of my children felt working was hindering their progress in college. If anything it was quite the opposite. Good luck
My D’s on campus jobs included tutoring the middle and HS children of one of her professors, being a course grader, and doing paid research in a lab. Most of her friends had jobs and no one worked in any of the jobs you mentioned.
My S23 is a tour guide on campus and it’s an awesome job. Very flexible hours, great experience with public speaking, and he has met a lot of interesting people.
My parents had the same approach-I was on therir credit card in High School with “judgement” on purchases. When I started college, I established a bank account at a bank near campus (so I could withdraw cash as needed) and my parents put $1000 in the account. That was my social spending, for coffee, snacks, nights out, etc; with it up to me to set my buget for how much I felt comfortable spending. We set expectations for the credit card: school supplies and travel home were definite yes, Lyft rides unless they were excessive. Any purchase more than $25 I was expected to text and get permission unless it was an emergency.
That approach worked well, and I barely made a dent in the inital 1k. Sophmore year I started working on-campus as I wanted a bit more day-to-day spending money. My on-campus earnings go into that same bank account, while my summer internship money goes into a savings account. I have now tripled that inital investment, while still having fun. I go out for coffee every weekend, I’ll make small purchases for fun stuff.
I still have access to my parent’s credit card and we have made clear agreement on what I can spend. I still live on-camus and have the lowest possible meal plan, so I’m allowed to spend up to $100/month on groceries to supplement my meal plan. Plane rides home are a definite yes for the credit card, I did get my own Airline rewards credit card, so now I spend the money and my parents reimbursement. I can charge 1 meal with friends each semester (birthday dinner and exam season). Ocassional buisness-professional clothing purchases, medicine and doctor visits. Beyond that, the expectation is that I spend money from my bank account.
This approach has been perfect as it slowly removed the reigns and promoted independence, but I wasn’t stressed about not having an on-campus job Freshman year.
I work for my college’s office of recruitment helping out with information sessions and tours, TA for a freshman course and work as a Relationship Violence Prevention Peer Educator. All 3 jobs have been super flexible, and I’ve only taken on as much work as I can handle. I previously worked as a mentor for a living-learning community.
For my CS friends, many of them have part-time remote internships during the school year.
Your D doesn’t need a job in college. A summer job works too. DS worked through high school and one day, I asked if he wanted a ssndwich from the shop on the way to work. His answer : A sandwich there costs more than I get paid for an hour!
While my kid was always pretty frugal, spending birthday money was a very different thing from spending wages, when he had a very clear idea of equivalency!
My kids all started working at 14, so by college had resumes. My middle child is in her 3rd year of a doctorate program at BU. She can easily make over $500 a shift bartending at night, it’s hard work but she loves it. She lucked out working as a cashier at a pizzeria across from her apartment complex in undergrad (didnt have a car), and they taught her how to bartend, now she can get a job anywhere. She’s staying in Boston after graduation to study for her boards just to make good money. Not all jobs pay poorly, especially if you are willing to work hard (until 3 am). I forgot, she also works for BU answering emails and phone calls about the DPT program, which isn’t difficult, and in undergrad taught a one credit online freshman course which was easy.
Here comes everyone’s personal stories of how much their child did in college while holding jobs for most of their college career…
D worked at the campus tutoring center and did internships and various cruddy and not so cruddy jobs during her summers. She was in tons of clubs. Studied abroad. Made Dean’s list for 7 semesters. Won a few awards. Partied, had friends, had a boyfriend. We paid full fare for her education at a private LAC. She experienced every single thing that a kid wants to enjoy at college.
I could say similar of S, (minus the Dean’s list ) , who worked in the campus bowling alley disinfecting shoes, amongst other things.
Both have excellent jobs, living completely independently now. Believe me, their opportunities were maximized, not minimized, by working in college.
Came here to say this. For my S25, I want to make sure that he not only learns to budget but that he recognizes that things like $7 coffees, $20 salads, UberEats, salon trips, concert tickets etc. are luxuries, & finding cheap fun is a life skill. My college friends who struggled with credit card debt in the early post-grad years were all people who had been able to buy these little luxuries whenever they wanted & then struggled to match their sense of “normal” lifestyle to their first jobs.
As we visit campuses, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many of them have campus jobs available for as little as 4-5 hours a week; earning some spending money doesn’t have to be an enormous time commitment.
I can certainly sympathize with that view. But don’t forget that there are a wide variety of paid jobs that can align with your career aspirations, and some of those can initially be quite menial. So although my econ/urban policy kid got internships with thinktanks and paid RA positions with professors, my ballet dancer worked front desk, but later taught, at a yoga studio and my astrophysics kid worked as a parking attendant for events at the observatory, which has already led to an offer to assist in making observations during his sophomore year.
. My kids went to school when younger with the likes of the grandkids of the Zelles, Pritkzers and Rahm Emanuel kid’s when he worked in the White House among other’s. I understand peer pressure (usually from the parents actually). As stated even with engineering they will have plenty of time. PM me if you want to engage further and can tell you what my kid did and the internship /job opportunities that followed. Neither of my children felt working was hindering their progress in college. If anything it was quite the opposite. Good luck 
) , who worked in the campus bowling alley disinfecting shoes, amongst other things.