<p>I was wondering how students earn their spending money? I know there are jobs on campus, but I believe that is only for the work- study programs the school offers to certain students? Is it possible to get a job off campus nearby? How realistic is this for a Engineering major?</p>
<p>I know on the HMC website they have a COA equation that has living expenses and travel expenses calculated in. Do students have some sort of account on campus?</p>
<p>My concern is brought up because I'm trying to figure out how I will pay for general necessities such as toiletries, snacks, etc.</p>
<p>About how much spending money does a student need a week? $25? My parents can't pay full tuition (who can? haha) so I will have to take out student loans. Hopefully I'll get some kind of scholarship (I'm out of town so I wouldn't know if I got a letter regarding this). I'm just trying to figure out how to pay for things outside of tuition/ room and board. If any alumni or current student could share what they did/do, that would be great. : )</p>
<p>Your summer income is yours; they just factor it into their calculations of what you have available to pay. It’s not like they garnish your paychecks or something.</p>
<p>The total cost of attendance is an estimate. You will pay HMC for your tuition, room and board, and books and fees. The other numbers they list are just estimates for your budget consideration (actually, the cost of books is estimated too – get chummy with a rising soph and you may not have to buy many books next year ;)). You may or may not actually spend that much on those items (e.g., travel). That’s up to you, and it’s not done through HMC. If you don’t have a checking or savings account now, you will want to set one up before you leave home.</p>
<p>There are many jobs on campus that don’t require work-study eligibility. You’ll receive mail about some of them. Also, your room and board includes a certain number of “flex dollars” that you can spend on those snacks and toiletries (though toiletries are cheaper to bring with you than to buy there). If you get the full meal plan (16/16), you may have some difficulty spending all your flex dollars every week (they expire at the end of each week). My son hardly spends anything at all on campus, except when there’s a charity fundraiser or something like that. And he usually has to “flex out” on the weekends.</p>
<p>As to the mechanics of “how to pay for little stuff,” google “Claremont cash” for one option. Also, there are Chase and Wells Fargo ATMs in Claremont Village, and I think there’s an ATM of some other bank on campus.</p>
<p>If you don’t set up a Claremont Cash account, you may want to start saving quarters now for the laundry. :)</p>
<p>^ Thanks for all the information!! That was very helpful!! : )</p>
<p>I do have a few follow up questions though. The Claremont cash thing sounds like the same thing as a debit card, except you can’t withdraw your money haha. What is the benefit of having this card vs a debit card? Is it just more convenient for laundry?</p>
<p>Is there anyway I can look up what non-work study jobs they have available, by say, contacting the fin aid department? About how many hours a week is common/ doable?</p>
<p>How much money a week do we get in flex dollars (if you have an estimate?) If it’s like $25 or something like that than that should be more than enough to pay for those things… how does the whole flex dollar thing work though, since you said we can’t redeem them after a week, and we can give them to charity fundraisers?</p>
<p>Lastly, what is the benefit of having a savings/ checking account? I guess this ties into the first question. </p>
<p>And something sort of unrelated: Do most students have credit cards/ cell phones?</p>
<p>Ummm, Claremont cash goes on your ID so you won’t have to bring a debit card around? Plus I believe some oncampus eats (the Motley cafe at Scripps for one) accept C-cash but not debit cards.</p>
<p>You would be able to access a list of oncampus jobs at Muddlink (HMC job database) once you get an account (it’s pretty easy to register) I have a job that’s open to non-workstudy kids, I work as a bio lab asst. I work 5 hours a week, my other lab asst froshfriend works 3 hours a week.</p>
<p>Flex resets on Saturday night so basically at like 10PM everyone rushes to the Muddhole to buy stuff to use up their Flex. Flex amount depends on which mealplan – 16mealplan = 16$ flex, 12mealplan = 12$ flex, 8mealplan = 8$ flex.</p>
<p>Savings/checking is so you can spend money? How would your parents get money to you otherwise? oO;; Or if you have a job, they give you checks (I <em>think</em> cash payouts may be possible…) and you’d have to deposit those checks into a bank account</p>
<p>Dunno about credit cards but most people have a cell phone…</p>
<p>$25 a week??
ha. sorry. had to laugh.
I was a boarding student for two years. Even quite a number of high school students spend more than $40~50 a week as a boarder. How many would college students spend then?</p>
<p>If you are one of those students…
who easily get sick of cafeteria food and orders food about twice or three times a week, and then eat out every week, and buy clothes etc on the weekend, you’ll easily spend $50 a week.
But I figured that not as many people would eat like that in HMC because in my high school, you were basically stuck with the one cafeteria meal that wasn’t that great.
But, still I think it’ll be very easy to spend $25 a week</p>
<p>You can save a little money by going on the 12 meal plan. My Mudder has been on it since she started. She never goes to breakfast. She either has some food in her room (she goes to the Vons periodically for groceries) or she buys a bagel from the breakfast cart. I think that saves about $1000 per year. (There is also an 8 meal plan, but then you would have to do some serious meal preparation.) [url=<a href=“http://www.hmc.edu/about/administrativeoffices/studentaccounts1/board.html]Board[/url”>http://www.hmc.edu/about/administrativeoffices/studentaccounts1/board.html]Board[/url</a>]
As for spending money, she has had summer jobs each summer that have more than funded her in-term spending. Plus since her second semester freshman year, she has worked as a tutor/grader. I’m not really sure how many departments hire student “grutors” but she has worked for both the math department and the computer science department. For this upcoming semester she was deciding between 3 different job offers. My sense is that very part time (approx 4-8 hours per week) jobs on campus are plentiful.</p>
<p>maruhan2 – If it’s your own money you’re spending, you might not be so hasty to drop it as those boarding school kiddos. That’s the way it is for at least some college students, including mine. The food at Mudd is ample and good. There are plenty of ways to have fun on campus without spending any money at all. With room and board covered and a decent supply of toiletries stocked for the semester, some Mudders don’t spend anything at all except on laundry.</p>
<p>On a normal week at Mudd I spent $0. Every few weeks I’ll drop $30 on groceries, and maybe some miscellaneous expenses pop up now and then, but they are rare. Most of what I buy goes on flex, and that’s almost entirely food.</p>
<p>I kind of hope you’ll spend more than $0 a week actually, so you can take advantage of all the wonderful subsidized trips Mudd does. (through a committee called CAP) There are a ton of concerts that get cheaper, for example The Fray was $30 instead of $45, Jack’s Mannequin was $15 instead of $30, and also there are a ton of other events that get cheapened, like last year $5 for Spring Awakening, (normally ~$65 for musicals) and I know through Scripps this year there was Rent for $10 or $15. Also movies for $5 generally, sometimes for new releases there may be a CAP trip instead, for example $2 for Where the Wild Things Are. If you take advantage of it all, you’ll be able to go to all sorts of interesting places around the LA area, and experience a lot of things for much cheaper than you would otherwise be able to. Get off campus more, etc.</p>
<p>Also, if you drink or do drugs you can find yourself suddenly spending way too much money. Just a reminder to keep an eye on things.</p>
<p>In my case, I didn’t spend money on takeout. I mostly spent money on groceries and online shopping >__< I would’ve liked to have gone off campus more often. I agree with apathy, there’s opportunities to take advantage of.</p>
