I disagree with the assessment that she won’t make it and will be constantly relying on you. First of all, I lived on about $32,000 in New York as a single person and I did fine. Now, it wasn’t FUN. It was a struggle, and I could’ve never bought anything in the city real estate-wise, because any additional income I had had to go into an emergency fund. But I did it (and this was just 5-7 years ago, so not long). Secondly, I have friends that are social workers (the same ones who went to school in the field) and other friends who are doing relatively low-paid work - also mostly in New York and other expensive cities. Teachers, social workers, etc. Few of them are relying on their parents. Some of them are married to higher earners; some of them are married to people who make the same as them, and they live a pretty normal middle-class lifestyle; and some of them…just scrape by. My first job out of grad school was a postdoc in which I made $50,000 in a medium CoL area. I didn’t want to make that forever, or for any long stretch of time. But my friends are all mid-20s to mid-30s and nobody lives in their parents’ basement anymore (with the exception of one couple who actually rents out the basement apartment of one of their parents’ house - but they pay market rate for it!)
I think she could live on the $45-55K she’d make as a social worker. The thing is…she might not live the way she’s used to, or the way she really wants to live. But some people are okay with that - they’d rather make a little and do something they are passionate about than make a lot in a more mundane job. And then sometimes they change their mind and change careers. The key is to not go into huge debt so they can have the flexibility to change their minds. It’s quite a conundrum, because I think it would be a shame for her to miss out on the residential college experience on the basis of a job that she really wants to do now…at 17. (More on that in a moment).
What salary is necessary? Ugh, it really depends. It depends on one’s definition of the “American Dream,” and where one lives. I just moved to the metropolitan Seattle area and the housing market here wasn’t hit as hard by the recession, so a basic home here - even in the suburbs - can easily hit and exceed $500-600K (not affordable for someone on an income of $40K or even a two-income household of $80K). In fact, the teachers were just striking because they hadn’t gotten a raise in 6 years and could no longer afford to purchase homes in the city. Things are just overall pretty expensive here - not as bad as NYC or SF, but still. On the other hand, I’m from the metro Atlanta area, and my brother bought a 4-bedroom house there at age 19 on a salary of just about $40K for $125,000. That was 8 years ago, but you can still buy nice 3-bedroom houses in the metro Atlanta area for less than $250K, and the cost of living is overall lower there too. A person making $40K could live pretty decently there, and a two-income household of $80K would be just fine.
Also, in some places buying a home is not part of the “dream”. In New York, people often rent their entire lives without batting an eye, and whole families live in 3-bedroom apartments. I have some friends who are diehards, though, because they want to be able to walk out their door and into a public park or order Malaysian food at 3 in the morning, or pretend that they go to the Met ever. You also don’t need to own a car and all that comes with that cost.
The thing is though, I’m assuming your daughter is 17. She thinks she knows what she wants - and she does, for now. But her ideas about career and job are going to shift a lot as she gets older and learns more of the reality of what things cost. She’s never had to support herself before, so she doesn’t know! I remember I was just like her when I started college; I wanted to save the world, and I thought I didn’t care about money. I wanted to be a high school guidance counselor, or a social worker. Caring about money was gauche; it was about passion! Then I went to grad school and had to support myself on my grad student stipend in New York, and I learned what things cost and how quickly your money runs out. And frankly, I also grew up a bit - as I matured, I wanted more: a house, a family, a car. So my career interests and salary requirements evolved with that.
Now, like I said, some of my friends still believe(d) that money was less important than living their passion or helping people. (Otherwise, we wouldn’t have social workers.) So there’s a chance that your daughter may actually want to be a social worker forever and finds a way to make it work. But few of my friends are doing right now exactly what they imagined themselves to be doing when they were 17. In fact, I can think of one friend who has the same job she always wanted - and that’s because she had a cousin who did it, so she had a close-up view of what it was REALLY like. (The other ones are doctors or lawyers, largely. Some engineers.)
So maybe when life gets real she starts thinking more concretely about psych nursing or other alternatives that offer a higher salary.