With students having a hard time finding summer jobs . . .

[jld]

do you think parents will be contributing more to college expenses this year? I'm assuming kids working in the summer are doing so for more than just spending money during the school year. But if they can't find work, will they just borrow more? Drop out for a semester? If they can't find summer work, will it be any easier to find work in the fall?

 

Do you think the economy is changing how people see their responsibility towards their kids' higher education? Are we moving toward parents' no longer counting on their kids' ability to contribute to their education? Paying for college oneself is a tradition among many American families, but is this economy changing that?

Edited June 13, 2010 by jld

[Jane in NC]

While summer jobs may provide cash for text books or money for additional expenses, I fear that a summer job alone is not going to pay for college. The tricky thing is that the college funding formulas expect students to earn a certain amount of money. If they cannot find a job, obviously the expected contribution from this income stream must come from elsewhere. The question is where?

 

If anything, I think students will be borrowing less in the years ahead. The private lenders are not as eager to offer college loans and parents are certainly not using their houses as ATMs like they once did. That is one reason that community colleges are bursting at the seams (besides retraining unemployed workers). In my son's dual enrollment classes there were students who had formerly attending UNC system schools but could not afford to go back. Or, in his Chem lab partner's case, could not afford to leave for the university in the first place.

 

One thing that high school students can do this summer is volunteer. They can make connections which could lead to a job next fall or summer, have something potentially noteworthy to include on their college applications (like the personal statement of the Common AP). Just because a student is not making money does not mean that he cannot make a contribution to his family, his neighborhood or society at large.

[creekland]

I can't speak for others, but we're only expecting our oldest to collect $$ for his spending money from his variety of jobs (nothing regular, but it all adds up). It also leaves him free to do his other volunteer activities (mission trip, "preaching" competition - for which he's qualified to go to the top level later this month and it COULD come with a scholarship, and even a Hunger Banquet he designed and led and put on at our church last night - raising more than $800 to donate to microfinance enterprises in Haiti - microfinance is what he wants to work in after he graduates). He's doing so much that's so worthwhile that I didn't want him even to look for a full time "tied-down" job just yet. He'll be doing work study in college.

 

I'm picking up more hours/days at work to make up the difference (when I can - school's out for the summer now).

[justamouse]

It's going to be a nightmare with kids getting jobs. I'm NOT looking forward to it.

[Liza Q]

We are looking at kicking in some extra money, above the amount we had originally agreed on. I had been thinking of a small family vacation this summer and a girls weekend for me in the fall....now I am not planning either. She has a part time flex job lined up - iow, she may work 8 hours or 25 hours a week - who knows? She applied to around 18, maybe 19 jobs and this was her only offer, so it is better than nothing.

 

Her tuition went up and there are books to buy, plus her expenses to plan for the year - lunches and transportation. She has some money left in the bank but if she does not earn enough this summer, she will not have enough to get through the school year. And we will start giving her less after that as our next daughter will be starting college next fall and we'll be splitting what we have between the two of them. She was hoping to get through the first two years of college without any loans .

 

And she is living at home - I can't even imagine what we would do if she were living away! We are very grateful for her partial scholarship!!

[Chris in VA]

I don't know ANY kids who are able to fully fund their own education. I don't know any that have full rides or even quarter rides, either.

Realistically, a kid working in the summer can make 10 bucks an hour as a ballpark figure--nannying, landscaping, wait staff, lifeguarding--and much less in retail or camp counseling, for example. Say they have school until June, then start the end of August--that's what, 10 weeks or so? After taxes, it's about $3200 a summer, and that's usually paying for car, gas, any fun they might want to have, and saving for school. Say they are frugal, and have a good, paid-for car, don't have to cough up the thou for insurance, and their car gets good mileage--figure they spend $250 of that money.

 

Who can go to college for $2950? CC, maybe--here it is about $100 a credit, so $3000 a year for 30 credits (an average load). Great. How about books, living expenses, transportation, etc.?

 

We expect ds to pay a quarter of his total costs for college. He doesn't take vacation with us, doesn't go out, doesn't drive to his job (painter), works all breaks except in the spring...He's going to be hard pressed to come up with the quarter payment this year. The first year, he had some $ saved, and got some grad $. This year, it's a big stretch.

 

He's not even going to an expensive college--VCU is about $8.5G a year, plus dorm is about $7G or so. (Tuition did just jump 24% this year :tongue_smilie:)

 

I do think, if a kid can't get merit aid b/c they aren't a super scholar, and their parents make "too much" $, it's unrealistic to expect them to pay everything without some loans and some help.