<p>I do have a problem with large cell phone bills taking precedence over food budgets and am limited in my sympathy for them. I think it is short-sighted to quit school - education is a necessity in this era. Read Nickled and Dimed if you want to see how easy it is to get a job and support yourself without one.
When we were in college back before electricity, neither of us received help from our parents. We both worked as many hours as possible. I was fortunate enough that my loans and scholarships covered me living in the dorm with a meal plan. My husband was not. He lived off campus in a total dive (ice on the walls in winter), drove a beater, and worked a bunch of different jobs. He really didn't have money for food. Our sophomore year, I snuck food out of the caf for him for many many meals. He was SO skinny then! Perhaps the students profiled really don't need the food pantries, but I'm sure there are many in the situation we had in college that really do need help.</p>
<p>I am not against food banks--and if people are hungry, they should be fed, no questions asked! However, just where are these students attending college? Perhaps it is time to consider the cost of the education, not the school name or ranking. As we have all read, too many are hung up on having to attend the best, at a huge financial burden. Facts are facts-in these economic times, one may have to consider the financial aspect first when deciding where to attend college. Take a good hard look at the cost of that college education at that particular college. Adjustments may have to be made.</p>
<p>"I know I'll get flamed for this, but, a college education is a privilege. Eating is not. When I donate to food shelves, I'm expecting my food to go to people who can't afford basics. Here on cc, basics apparently include a college education".</p>
<p>Unfortunately, college education is really a necessity in this country. If these kids need help getting food then I have no problem with the food banks. I have more of a problem with abled bodied adults who take advantage of the welfare system. Cost of education is out of control. Cell phones also have become more of a necessity. I went to college in the 70's, so i know things are different. But didn't we do this to our kids?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Lose the cell phone
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom. College kids generally need cell phones. It would cost $350 for the academic year for my daughter to have the use of a landline for a phone in her dorm room. And then we'd have to buy a phone for her too. This $350 would include free local calls, but of course calling home is not a local call, so there would be long distance charges too. There are no pay phones that take incoming calls in the dorm; there may be a pay phone for outgoing calls, I don't know - I just asked if one could call into a common phone or payphone in the dorm and Housing said no. </p>
<p>It is hard for a college student (who has a family that wants to talk occasionally) to get by without a cell phone.</p>
<p>When we were in school, there were landline phones either in each person's own room or down the hall for people to share. Parents could call those phones. This is not the case anymore.</p>
<p>Frankly, I find it really annoying that there are no longer handy payphones at the city pool or at local Middle Schools. It feels like in our town, even younger teens need to have cell phones or constantly borrow friends' cell phones.</p>
<p>I don't want to open an off topic can of worms here, but in my opinion, basic cell phone service is not a frivolous luxury for a college student. It is a necessity. (Now I duck my head and hide under an asbestos cape.)</p>
<p>"Students</p>
<p>Most able-bodied students ages 18 through 49 who are enrolled in college or other institutions of higher education at least half time are not eligible for food stamps. However, students may be able to get food stamps if otherwise eligible and they:</p>
<pre><code>Get public assistance benefits under a Title IV-A program; or
Take part in a State or federally financed work study program............"
</code></pre>
<p>For students who qualify income and/or asset-wise (lack of car-ownership, $ amount in bank accounts) and according to their Financial Aid documents certified by their respective Dir. of Financial Aid are eligible and using Federal Work Study. Some state schools/CC's are have high percentages of Pell Grant and SEOG recipients. These same schools also gap MANY students with low EFC's $0 and up. Students use a combination of full subsidized loans, federal and state grants and federal work study in addition to outside part-time jobs and still come-up short, hence the eligibility for USDA assistance.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Food banks should be for elderly, working poor and other family situations.
Do I think that college students should be using them ? No I don't.
I still sand by my j-1 seasonal worker as a comparison. When they enter the USA, they are already about $1500 - $ 2000 in debt , just to cover the cost of their visa and travel here. I have been working amongst them for the last several years and I see how hard it is for them , yet have never heard them complain about how costly it is to be here...and it is very costly for them to rent in a resort area.
Like I said, they pool their resources and eat and live as frugally as possible. I don't see why am American college student cannot do some similar things to take care of themselves .
For the record, let me say that I was by my divorced mother that rec'd no child support and worked in a school cafeteria , not exactly a high paying job. I had no idea we were poor because she managed, against the odds to feed and house 4 kids . She could have qualified for not only food stamps , but other handouts , yet she never did.
The respect I have for her cannot be measured</p>
<p>I agree re: cell phones.
We didn't get phones for the family till D was a junior in college- but I feel they are invaluable for safety reasons, for convienence and consistency.
Young people may move every 6 months and how do you get a hold of them other wise? Write them a letter?</p>
<p>Homeless people even have cell phones Mobile</a> Phone Use Among Homeless People | MobileActive.org</p>
<p>Regarding requirements for food stamps-
Is someone who is poor going to have the money to fix a car that is worth less than $1,500?
FNS</a> Food Stamp Program Eligibility Screening Tool
I plugged numbers into this screening tool for food stamps in Wa, using $400 month income with one other person in household and $1000 in savings.
It did not qualify me for food stamps.
We have no safety net ( in Wa)
When we were living on $300 a month- strike benefits when D was young, when I was pregnant and on bedrest- we didn't qualify for any other services, as it took at least a month on that income before you could apply and longer than that to receive anything.
Even though I was pregnant, I couldn't get anything through aid to women & children, because I had to wait.
The * only* place that has help you don't have to wait for is the food banks.
We are letting too many people slip through the cracks - although I admit it isn't pretty to look at or think about.</p>
<p>More fun to discuss how expensive Ivy league tuition is.</p>
<p>I agree that a student having a cell phone is nice and I wouldn't want my kids to be without one. It's nice to have but not a necessity. People 'need' to eat, they need shelter, they need some basic level of clothing, some basic level of medical care (in the event of an issue), but they don't 'need' a cell phone. I somehow survived without one and without a landline (not even 'down the hall'). It was inconvenient but I managed. There are billions of people living in this world right now without a cell phone or a landline and they're surviving.</p>
<p>If we were to ask the student they'd probably also say that the text messaging option on their cell phone plan is a necessity. Why? Because they 'want' it.</p>
<p>" I somehow survived without one and without a landline (not even 'down the hall')."</p>
<p>It would be extremely hard for most people to get a job without having a telephone. How would a prospective employer reach you? I worked up to 30 hours a week during college and grad school including doing temporary office work, and having a phone was invaluable in my getting employment.</p>
<p>" I still sand by my j-1 seasonal worker as a comparison. When they enter the USA, they are already about $1500 - $ 2000 in debt , just to cover the cost of their visa and travel here. I have been working amongst them for the last several years and I see how hard it is for them , yet have never heard them complain about how costly it is to be here...and it is very costly for them to rent in a resort area."</p>
<p>I don't see any comparison between low income college students and people who sacrifice to immigrate to the U.S. because their home countries have so little to offer them.</p>
<p>I also think that it's far easier for people from foreign countries to connect with similar people here to pool their resources and live frugally than it is for low income college students.</p>
<p>From what I've seen, typically struggling people from foreign countries who come to the U.S. connect with relatives, friends or people from their home towns in order to live frugally. They are part of a network of people who has made such a move. They may work in similar fields (such as restaurant work or similar work) or be able to connect because they speak the same language. </p>
<p>That's not the same with low income students who go to college. They may be the only one of their family, friends, neighborhood to go to a particular college. It also may be very difficult for them to identify other low income students at the college whom they could live with and share resources with in the way that immigrants are able to do.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It would be extremely hard for most people to get a job without having a telephone. How would a prospective employer reach you? I worked up to 30 hours a week during college and grad school including doing temporary office work, and having a phone was invaluable in my getting employment.
[/quote]
I worked up to 40 hours per week while going to college (I paid for everything myself), worked first at a department store then at an auto parts place and didn't have a telephone and it was fine. I don't think it's really all that hard at all to get a low level job without a phone - especially nowadays with email. It just means that the potential employee needs to either stop by the workplace (like on a college campus or nearby stores) or call back a time or two to see if they got the job. </p>
<p>I actually had a software developer working for me who didn't have a phone and I have another person working for me now who doesn't have a phone. It's workable for his position.</p>
<p>I don't dispute how nice it is to have a phone - it's just not essential. If I was down to $40 a month that I could spend either on a cell phone or on meals for the last week (or starve), I'd pick the meals.</p>
<p>As noted without the phone its improbable one can find work. </p>
<p>Work study, tends to be minimal hours and dependent of the hours the student is given under fafsa standards can be less than 8 hours a week. Under current conditions an entire weeks worth of work study could be eaten up with one tank of gas. </p>
<p>And with an average 6% yearly increase in tuition, what money students do get from either pells, or gods help them loans, disappears about as quickly as its disbursed. And many students have gotten a good sense of how predatory SL loans are, and so are trying their best to limit these. In the past generation, tuitions were lower, grant amounts were higher and so there often was some living money left over...</p>
<p>With the non traditional students or those who do not have on campus housing much of what they do make is eaten by rents. Which has become very problematic in many of the larger cities because of the foreclosure mess. Many properties are in foreclosure and the attendant lawyers and banks have no interest in seeing them rented. All of which is driving up the price of rents, and that doesn't even consider the competition students now face for rentals, from those dislocated by foreclosures. </p>
<p>And yes, the somewhat older generation does tend to get wispy eyed about their successes but the country has changed considerably...as is very evident from the people lined up at failing banks and booted from their homes. </p>
<p>And perhaps criticizing "lo" the poor student is the wrong route. For example, last year NNC over billed the USDOE some 250 + Million, which Spellings let them keep, and quelled any investigation into the matter.
250,000,000 / 3000=83,000 potential grants for students.</p>
<p>This area does not have high unemployment, and the minimum wage is more than $7 an hour. On my side of the lake (a short, free bus ride from UW) the windows of fast food and retail stores are full of "Help Wanted" signs. If those UW students (who are actually out on summer vacation right now) wanted to work, they could. No tears here.</p>
<p>Yes it is good that Wa has tied the min wage to inflation, as such though, the increase in available income seems negligble.
On my side of the lake (a short, free bus ride from UW) the windows of fast food and retail stores are full of "Help Wanted" signs.
You know why they always have help wanted in the window- high turnover. low pay, irregular hours, no benefits, crappy working conditions.
( a student bus pass is also not free- it is $50 a qtr UW</a> Commuter Services : Commuting : Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ))</p>
<p>Apparently no one here has found that it is difficult to get a job when you are over qualified, or realized that of the businesses that do pay minimum wage, that you are fighting for hours as workers are not given full time slots and don't even know week to week what their schedule will be. Makes it difficult to patch full time work together, or attend classes.</p>
<p>However, if a UW student was able to patch together full time work, 52 weeks a year, they would just about be able to pay for a years worth of in state tuition- plus room and board. Unfortunately, since room and board on campus is all but impossible to get, even for freshmen and few want to rent to college students but luckily the mayor has decreed that new low income housing will be available soon, unfortunately rent will be over $1000 for a studio. :(
Local</a> News | Housing relief? Council OKs controversial tax break | Seattle Times Newspaper</p>
<p>My bad on the bus pass -- I had been told that it was a student benefit.</p>
<p>The thrust of the original story was that students were lining up for free food as a result of recent economic changes. The cost changes that happened lately would be fixed for a student by a fairly modest increase in their income -- say 8 or 10 hours a week working at minimum wage at some retail establishment.</p>
<p>As someone who worked all through school, taking terms off to work and save money along the way, I can say that even though it took me 7 years to graduate, it could be done. Standing in line whining doesn't get you through, DOING something does. The universe doesn't care if any particular person graduates college, but if the individual cares they can certainly do something about it.</p>
<p>As for "overqualified" -- no undergraduate around 20 years old is overqualified for any job. Usually, the employer is just hoping that they will show up as scheduled and not be total slackers. Work schedule -- this is summer. Why are these kids lining up for free food in the summer time? Every hour spent in line should be spent pounding on doors looking for a job. I smell more that a little whiff of entitlement here.</p>
<p>As for paying tuition on minimum wage, that's not what the story was about. If someone needs to pay for college all out of their own pocket, they can dig ditches and wait tables until they've saved up enough money. My father took a night job to pay the hospital bill when I was born (in addition to his regular day job). Washington isn't in the middle of a depression, there are jobs to be had, and I frankly don't care that college kids would rather stand in line for free food than work. When I finished college the unemployment rate was 7.5% (and rising to a high of 11 a year later) and inflation was running nearly 11%. I never had trouble find entry-level work because I took my job seriously and (nearly) always tried to do well. Some of those students in line in the U District might try it.</p>
<p>Sorry to release this news, Horatio Alger is dead. And even when he was alive it was largely a form of propaganda. </p>
<p>As far as students working at the Burger King, many do, but in order to make enough to have it meaningful it would entail 40+ hours weekly. Because of fuel and inflation non students who have these kind of jobs simply aren't making it.
So 1-10 hours a week, as noted just might pay the gas to get to the underpaid job and little else. </p>
<p>Ditch digging or field hand work, perhaps but often all that will buy is a permanent ticket to the underclass. Or is it just coincidence that the ditch diggers tend to be recent immigrants, and often illegals who can be paid well below the legal minimum wage? As such, in some areas it's unlikely some bright eyed college student is going to be hired as a ditch digger, the employers often want the marginalized and illiterate for such work...keeps INS away, or OSHA, or those pesky child labor laws. Here in Colorado generally the students who have done that type of work, are fighting their way out of that class. Rather than descending into it to make a little tuition money. And for those aspiring students they are very reliant on grants to even be able to attend school. And many do not make it, because their secondary education is often lacking or so bad that college is very, very difficult. </p>
<p>And perhaps full time work is the answer, the problem is for students to be able to really apply that years wages for studies, enough resources have to exist elsewhere to allow that money to be saved. And if they are part of the working poor class, saving a years wages is nigh on impossible. Especially given our current economic troubles. </p>
<p>And the only arena that conceptually playing with Alger-isms is valid, is the conceptual context that the distribution of wealth is the US is the now proportionally shifting to being as skewed as it was in the gilded era.</p>
<p>There was a time an honest man, or woman, could make a effort upwards and outwards by the sweat of their brow, but those conditions are dying because of a drastically changed economy. As such that generation should be honored, but we need to realize those conditions no longer exist. After all, luminaries such as Harvard's Dr. Warren have written quite lucidly about the decline of the middle classes because of the the shift to the debt economy. Under those conditions the working poor are already the walking dead.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Before, when I lived in the dorms, I was on the meal plan," the 20-year-old said. "Now that I'm in the apartment, I have to pay for food, and I have to pay my cell phone bill. I don't make enough to pay for both."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I do not know many colleges that offer FREE meal plans. People decide to live off-campus because the combination of sharing an apartment and buying your own food is ... cheaper. The amount of financial aid remains the same and so should one's budget.</p>
<p>Using a clueless student to further the agenda of a story is a sure sign of poor journalism. </p>
<p>Lastly, the proposition that a starving student NEEDS a cell phone is simply preposterous. It is not that different from people pretending a family needs one car for EACH family member but cannot afford the high prices of gas. </p>
<p>A cell phone is NOTHING but a luxury. There are plenty of easy solutions ranging from a landline to computer phones such as Skype. Is three dollars a month for a SkypeIn number not better than 10 or 20 times more? What is wrong with asking a friend to accept a call from a potential employer?</p>
<p>Just a stack of poor excuses from people used to walk the path of least resistance. Fwiw, panhandlers also have plenty of excuses!</p>
<p>Northstarmom,
The J-1 workers do not immigrate here. They are here on a temp work visa during their summer break between semesters .Part of the requirement to obtain the visa is to be enrolled as a full time university student in their own country. The stay is usually from May to Sept. I have met dozens and dozens of them . Most of them are eastern European, Russian, and middle eastern. I have yet to meet one who comes here to the USA knowing anyone here already.
They come because they make more money here and can work insane hours ( again, never heard a complaint of working 12 hour shifts, 7 days a week )
They get around by foot or cheap used bike. A bus is for a rare day off and trip to a mall or Best Buy , once they have saved enough to perhaps buy a laptop or Ipod.
You are right , the opportunies in their own countries pale in comparison to what they have here in the USA. I have even known a dentist, studying to become an oral surgeon from Egypt that worked a min wage job and made more money than he could imagine.
My point is , if these hungry young workers can do it, why can't
an American college student do the same ?</p>
<p>Well the path of least resistance is a common practice in failing systems, or in systems which are perceived as being stratified. </p>
<p>Discounting the spoiled little tosser who apparently just noticed he does indeed have to pay for food-in some areas students are substantially struggling.
Chronicle of Higher Education has noted rural colleges are expecting substantial declines in enrollment because of falling rural economies and rising fuel prices. </p>
<p>And very indicative of how much the rules of the game have changed is the problem of college costs and the attendant increased debt loads for education. Increasingly the costs of college versus end wages has become so imbalanced that obtaining an education could actually become a liability in the near future. NEA in their article "My Debt, My Life" made it very clear that this problematic trend is already developing for their constituency . And since many of the working classes, and lower middle class go to college for such professions as teachers or nursing...its very probable that this imbalance could undermine these very necessary trades. And for many in the laboring classes college is increasingly viewed as a fools game, as they've seen enough of their compatriots come out of college with little more than an impossible debt...so for some the whole system is increasingly viewed as a sham. </p>
<p>The food bank students are simply the photo-op/sound bit for a much deeper problems in the general economy and within education.</p>
<p>And very often panhandlers served our country with honor and were discarded by the very system they fought to protect.</p>
<p>And what is wrong with asking your friend to accept a call is that from a potential emplyer is that you are asking your friend to be responsible for you. What if they are unavailable, what if they are out of service range, what if its a call that is timely, ie the employer is on the road and has just a few minutes.</p>
<p>And look on the street, and look for phone boxes, they are very few and far between, and getting removed all the time.</p>
<p>Landlines, well, not so easy to deal with. Most of my neice's college friends have never had a landline. Roommates, and most people this age have roommates that come and go, Dorm phones can be expensive, and much college emergency communication is done by cell phone texting.</p>
<p>Also, many jobs that college kids get are parttime, with the need for them to be "on call", ready to fill in for someone else- sales jobs, costumer sevice etc. If you don't get that call, then the boss may call someone else, and you have lost out. Lets say you are a parttime bar tender, or waittress, and they need you to cover a shift and need to know now. If you miss that call, or have to wait for your friend to meet up with you, well, someone else will get the work, and they will be called first next time.</p>
<p>In this day, when it is pretty much expected that a person will be readily available. You miss the call, you can miss the work. It is how it is these days. </p>
<p>As for one's budget, when food prices are going up and up for the basics, if your paycheck doesn't cover the increase, well, then you have to find ways, but to say cell phones are a luxury is ignoring the reality of the current work force.</p>
<p>Incidentally the students in the story which started this thread might be entitled little brats but...</p>
<p>Isn't the concept of considering the manner of life which is compelled upon recent immigrants, as now being a normal state-a tacit admission of a general decline in our standard of living? The immigrants come from failed systems, be that Mexico, Russia, or etc and so will make incredible sacrifices to attempt to raise their status, and hopefully they will attain that success. But to have other groups have to take the path of the new immigrants is not necessarily a good harbinger for the general economy or society. </p>
<p>And as is evident from some of my generation leaving the US for Canada or Europe just possibly the standard of living here isn't what it should be?</p>