my daughter starts as a freshman this fall.
living on campus.
tuition, room, board, fees (billed by the university) will be covered 20:40:40 student loans:mom:dad
It’s the “everything else” I’m not clear on: dorm stuff, computer, cell phone, “personal”, books, transport (minimal), entertainment, snacks, clothes, you name it, etc.)
when I was in college the general rule of thumb was “parents pay tuition room and board, student pays “everything else””. that worked out really horribly for me, to be honest, because I spent so much time working & getting distracted by the things I encountered while working (people, substances). plus working was a lot easier than studying… So I’m definitely leary of the distraction factor of working.
My daughter has been offered federal work study at $2200/year. which probably means 10h/wk for most of the semester. A mid-20s friend of mine told me she should skip the workstudy and focus on her GPA because that will be a bigger pay-off on keeping her scholarships (which are GPA dependent), getting more scholarships, and longer-term having more accomplished and therefore getting better funding for grad school. this is a line of thinking I definitely never went down before, so I don’t know what to think.
my questions are:
what rule-of-thumb have you used for your student and how did it work out?
what do you think of my friend’s point about work study?
how much did “everything else” actually run? (urban school, 1h from home)
my daughter is (at the moment) sensible and pretty frugal, she spent her gap year working for $12/hr, so she’s got that “work” experience behind her.
any advice & perspective would be appreciated.
Thanks
I think this is one of those YMMV questions. MY older D had the option of working or having an allowance from her dad, but she didn’t like the idea of itemizing for her dad, which he required, so she worked. She was like you-spent more time and fun working than was necessary. I did work-study, an easy job which paid off well in terms of savings on expenses. It never cut into my gpa. It was related to my major, though, and DID help me get my first post-college job. Well worth it.
Our rule of thumb for D, who leaves for college in 2 days (!) is that she will get an allowance but is expected to pay for extras and books (low-cost-she is renting every book possible). She has worked this summer and saved every cent of her graduation money, so she will not need to work during school. We will revisit the situation after her freshman year.
I am of the “student pays everything else” mindset. However, my D landed an on campus job freshman year outside of work study, but was also involved in a pretty demanding extra curricular. Her job as a desk assistant required two off hour shifts a week. When I found that she was required to work a 2:00 am-6:00 am shift one night when she had three exams later that day I pulled the plug. I was afraid she would lose her $20,000+ a year academic scholarship for around $650 she would earn that semester. Totally not worth it. My S is starting school in the fall. He has been approved for $3,000 of work study. We have discussed potential jobs, but if they are too much time and not flexible with his academic schedule we will pass. He also has a merit scholarship and will be majoring in engineering so he will be challenged. He was lucky enough to land a job this summer where he is working lots of hours and has saved quite a bit of money. They have also invited him to return to work over winter break. I am hoping this will make the work study job unnecessary.
I would want to learn what type of work study job the student is able to get. Some are nice jobs in a convenient location with steady hours. Agree that the 2 am job wouldn’t be good.
Edited to add that when I was in college, the work study jobs tended to be more desirable than the types of jobs the non-work study students would get.
Doesn’t your D have savings from her gap year earnings? That could cover “everything else.”
Books can be expensive. The college should have estimates posted online or in your FinAid award letter. Everything else is pretty much the same as what it’s always been. She doesn’t need to buy all new clothes, she’ll still need shampoo, etc. You should find your food bill much reduced, maybe hot water bill too!
All the comments about working are valid. It is a very individual decision. My D wanted to forego working her first year. I talked her down to one semester. Then when she registered and actually could see what time she would have available, she was OK with trying to work about 5 hours a week. She hasn’t started college yet so we’ll see how it all works out.
But she works every summer, has already contributed $800 toward tuition, and will have about $1500 in the bank at the end of summer. So even if she doesn’t find a job or can’t stick with it, she’ll have enough spending money. I will cover books. I buy most of her clothes and toiletries, she pays for her junk food, special events, etc.
The work study wage at her college is pathetic. She makes much better money during the summer, but it will work well to have a steady stream of spending money during the school year.
Another thing to keep in mind, for anyone who it affects: work study wages do not get counted in income on FAFSA (they are reported but then the formula subtracts them out), but summer earnings and any non-work-study wages count as student income.
My kids are responsible for ‘everything else’ but really it is nothing. They have tuition, fees, r&b covered, cell phones and sorority dues covered. They had ‘points’ on their meal plans for some snacks. They do have to pay for books and supplies out of their work money, as well as laundry, t-shirts, other clothing (they need NOTHING).
If you can afford to have your daughter not work, that’s a fine family decision. If she needs to work, 10 hours of work study per week isn’t bad. There are lots of jobs in the library, at the department offices, at the gym, at the dorm desks. It will not cut into study time if she is organized. I worked 15 hours per week typing in the library for 2+ years of school. All hours were during the day, which was my choice. I didn’t miss out on friend time, on weekend sports. It was just part of my school schedule, just like a class (a class without homework). My college roommate didn’t work. Her father gave her a sum of money each semester to cover her expenses. Her mother sent her $20 (a fortune in those days) every Monday morning, which arrived every Tues in the mail. She didn’t study any more than I did, but she did have more time to volunteer, and she did teaching skiing to special needs kids and coaching rec soccer and basketball teams.
I think kids tend to spend what they have. If they have $15 per week for Starbucks and another $20 for pizza, they’ll spend it. If they don’t have that, they won’t spend it. If you decide not to fund your daughter’s extras, she can always contact you if she needs some money or if having the job doesn’t work out. I sent my kids care packages with snacks, toiletries, supplies they might have mentioned they needed. I know my brother occasionally sends them money. Get an Amazon Prime membership and you can send all kinds of stuff fast and easy.
Any decision you make doesn’t have to be permanent, either. Try out the job, and if it doesn’t work, work out an allowance.
If she is getting scholarships, you need to rework your percentages. Her “job” is to keep those. That changes how you look at it. If she has savings or summer money, that can help too.
My daughter went by the “parents pay tuition room and board, student pays “everything else”” rule and graduated summa cum laude. She definitely worked all the way through school, generally with 2 or 3 part-time jobs including work study. If anything, I think work can be more grounding – there are plenty of other distractions.
Sorry about your own personal negative experiences – but are you sure that the job was really the problem? “Work was a lot easier than studying” sounds more like an excuse, perhaps a convenient one at the time… wouldn’t play (goofing off, socializing, etc.) also have been easier than studying?
I worked 20-25 hours per week for all 4 years of undergrad and as many hours as I could get summers and breaks. I did not have much of s college social life but not sure I would have anyway. It just was not my focus at the time. It IS very doable to work 10 hours a week.
Our agreement with DS is we will contribute $50 per month to his checking account for a haircut, toiletries, the occasional off campus meal, etc. Laundry is included in dorm costs. Cell phone continues on our family plan. Books are coming from his college fund. He is responsible for his own spending money. He will not have a car on campus freshman year but if he wants one in later years he has to be able to afford the insurance. He also has to have a reason to need one (job, internship, etc). I think having minimal spending money is a good thing. It keeps them closer to campus and makes them work a bit harder to move on from that situation.
He will work summers and up to 10 hours per week during school.
My goal was to have my kids contribute but at the same time allow them have flexibility in how much they work without stressing about expenses or worrying about grades slipping. So we take care of everything except entertainment but they contribute 1/2 their earnings to us.
They are frugal, and entertainment at school is generally cheap or free, so they are still able to save.
Regarding work study: I think most kids can work a few hours a week. Especially if (but not required) they get a job where they can study at the same time.
There have to be at least ten other threads addressing this question…which comes up annually.
Here is the Thumper family plan:
Tuition, fees, room board covered by mom and dad.
Kids remained on our cell phone family plan with stipulation that they call at their convenience once a week.
Kids remained on our health insurance.
We paid for transportation home for school breaks. Note…to HOME. If kid chose to go,elsewhere for spring break…they had to pay.
All other costs…personal expenses, books, etc…our kids had jobs. They worked on the summers, and they worked 10 hours a week or so while in college. This covered those other expenses.
This is SOOOOO a personal family decision. Some families give their kids an allowance for personal exoenses…or part of them.
I think you need to look at what you can do…and make a decision that works for your family.
Great input all posters. Keep it coming please, especially specifics of your family’s method/choices and reasoning . It will be very helpful for me, my daughter and her dad to see the range of variations and ways to do it.
I’m seeking “tell me what you did” not “tell me what to do”.
Few families in my social world talk frankly about money so I am really eager to hear your thoughts.
For both my kids, I recommended they not work their first semester. I wanted them to have a chance to adjust to the pace of college life. D found a job tutoring 2nd semester, and since then has worked as a ref for intramural sports (not work-study as we didn’t qualify but still on-campus). She was working summers, but the last two summers has received research grants to do field studies in Europe, so we’ve cut her some slack since she couldn’t earn as much.
S is anxious to find an on-campus job right away, but as an engineering major in the honors program I am still strongly recommending he wait. I won’t “forbid” it, but will likely check in more frequently with regard to grades, as his scholarship is dependent on maintaining a certain GPA. If he stays engineering he likely will have paid internships later on so he should be in good shape.
Both kids have been strongly encouraged to study abroad and we have offered to pick up related expenses because we believe strongly in getting out into the world. D has learned to travel very frugally in Europe (Ryan Air, hostels, AirBnBs, and so on). S probably won’t be able to spend a semester abroad without impacting his major but we’ve offered to pay for him to go during his school’s winter term.
I buy their books (had to buy them in high school as well so never really thought about having them do so), pay their cell phones and cover health insurance and any health-related costs. They pay for anything they need while on campus, from toothpaste to new clothes to entertainment. We do pay their travel back and forth to home.
It depends on the kid and the college. One of mine worked while in college, and still graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Her college was not a reach for her, she wasn’t in a STEM major, and didn’t play a sport. She worked in the school writing center, and it helped her get a job after graduation (boss told her it made her resume stand out).
Kid #2 goes to a rigorous STEM school – was awarded WS, but couldn’t keep her head above water academically and work during the school year. Has had paid summer research opportunities, and made enough to cover her expenses and still bank enough for books & spending money during the year.
Some schools require WS frosh to work in food service. It isn’t bad – they can usually take a low number of hours. But after that, a lot of students find work within their major departments or desk jobs where they can study some of the time.
I worked in the dining halls as my first work study job, which was common on my campus. Most people did move on to “better” jobs after freshman year. I stayed there until halfway through junior year because the hourly rate was higher than most other jobs.
In one of your other threads you said that your daughter is going to Northeastern and the cost is on the upper end of what’s affordable. If she has to work to make sure costs are covered, that’s just the way it is. I’m not sure what other families do matters. When she works may depend on how much money you need to make it affordable. If she just needs to raise money for books and personal expenses, a full-time summer job should be able to cover them. If you need more, she may have to work during the year too. It really depends on the financial aid package and what you and her dad can afford.
We were on the @thumper1 plan. I will say, though, that a student should be able to manage a few hours of paid work in addition to classwork. Sometimes, having “only” homework allows for way too much free time. Obviously, it’s up to the family, but someone distracted by the social aspects of work can just as easily be distracted by the social aspects of clubs, teams, dorm neighbors, etc. I wouldn’t think that’s a good reason to turn down work study. And hey, just because you’re awarded 10 hours a week doesn’t mean you have to work them. I think my youngest maybe worked 4 a week freshman year.
Also on the @thumper plan. We pay room, board, tuition, and travel home. We do not require our oldest to do work study because he is a varsity athlete, but he still makes more than enough money in the summer to cover his expenses while at school. We will ask our daughter to do a reasonable amount of work study when she begins next year. I can’t fathom how a kid does not have 10 hours a week to sit in the library or wash dishes in the caf.