Working your way through college
still can pay off
Is working your way through college still relevant? Or is it an anachronism?
I raise these questions because of a recent Wall Street Journal commentary that struck a nerve. The piece, from Richard R. West, a former dean of New York University’s Stern School of Business, was headlined “You Can’t Work Your Way Through College Anymore.”
The author related his time as an undergraduate student at Yale University in the mid-1950s, where he waited on tables in a student dorm for about $1 an hour, 10 hours a week to cover some of his college costs. Although he was on full scholarship, his wages would have represented a significant contribution to his Yale education.
Today, he wrote, his wages — adjusted for inflation — would cover 5 percent of his tuition, room and board.
“A half-century ago,” he wrote, “fully working your way through college was a real possibility. Now, “the tuition and fees at many (private and public) institutions .?.?. is well beyond what can be earned while studying full-time. That is why so many students at public institutions are now leaving college, whether or not they graduate, with mountains of debt.”
To save money, he added, many students are turning to community college for two years while continuing to live at home, “although at the cost of greatly diminishing the college experience.”
He concluded by noting that the idea of working your way through college is a notion that has gone the way of “pay telephones and black-and-white televisions.”
But there’s another side to consider beyond tuition dollars, with plenty of anecdotal evidence that balancing a job while hitting the books is a healthy experience, financially and otherwise.
Admittedly, work alone may not cover the astronomical costs of higher education. Most people understand that, but little bit saved means taking on less debt. (Many experts recommend no more than $8,000 a year in student loans.)
Think of working through college, including work-study programs, as one of the ways to pay for tuition, room and board. The other methods are scholarships, loans and savings, and investments.
This year, I volunteered with several organizations to judge essays written by high school students seeking college scholarships. The students mainly came from low-income households.
In essay after essay, students wrote that they have been working, or plan to start working, after school and during summers and on through college to help defray the costs. None of them saw working as something that would diminish their college experience.
Here’s what really hit home: Several applicants said they felt an obligation to work as a way of sharing the heavy financial obligations with their parents. They have skin in the game.
Moreover, the positives of balancing school work with an outside job go beyond a paycheck, such as learning to be punctual, getting along with a team, taking responsibility when mistakes are made, developing better study habits and widening your network of friends.
One parent recently told me his son had a work-study job at school scanning documents. Not only did the money cut some of his college tab, but the workplace experience could lead to landing a summer internship with an accounting firm and possibly a job after graduation.
As one Wall Street Journal reader put it in response to West’s commentary: “Living at home and with a little help from me, my kids will graduate with no loan debt, having worked their way through college. I think they are better off living in the real world getting on-the-job experience while going to school.”
There are many things out of whack with the price of a college education, including the mountains of debt some students graduate with. But there’s nothing wrong with working your way through college to save money and better yourself at the same time.
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