Back in the stone age when I went to school I actually got work study jobs I LOVED by going to the jobs fair and really looking beyond the dining hall jobs my floor mates took. My first one was with the sound & lighting organization on campus and I got paid to do things I had been doing for free in HS. Second one was working at the campus pub – but scheduling the entertainment – so yeah I got to pick the bands I liked and drink free beer and got paid for it.
Not every WS gig involves scraping mashed potatoes off plates. You can find them with a little effort. Those jobs and more not only paid me but also educated me and enriched my college experiences. I’d take them both today!
We were also on the @thumper1 plan but I’ll have to say we also learned from the eldest.
Our eldest was on a scholarship; we didn’t want her to ruin her chances at maintaining it, so we told her that her job was getting good grades. She worked at Sea World during the summers, so that was her spending money.
DD1 felt sorry for a dorm mate. The dorm mate was on a needs-based scholarship and had to work “work study”. Unfortunately for her, the “good” work study jobs were gone. The only jobs left were in “food services” and the girl worked a 2 am to 6 am shift a couple of days a week. It completely affected her grades and the girl left the school immediately after freshman year.
DD2 worked ~10 hours per week at a university lab that was a non-work study job for more than the minimum wage. This was soph, jr. and sr years. She also had an internship in senior year, and had another job that year. Her class load wasn’t as intense, so she was able to do it during her senior year. DD2 also had summer money for spending.
DS3 worked summers to save up his spending money. His job was also to maintain good grades. He was not “allowed” to work since we were already providing an allowance.
Each child is/was different and each financial situation is/was different.
We have a college fund that covers the cost for the following: tuition, room (& utilities, internet and parking fee off campus), plus food.
I pay for health insurance, cell phone (family plan), and a tank of gas when he comes home and leaves to go back to school. I’m the owner of the car he drives and I pay car insurance and maintenance.
I give Ds $300/month allowance to cover whatever he needs/wants it to cover - personal expenses, socializing, club dues/entry fees/transportation costs related to club activity, haircuts, clothing, gas, etc. Should note - DS college lists cost of attendance for transportation and personal expenses which average out to almost $300/month.
DS has “extra” money from lifeguarding in high school and paid internships during summer. He covers the housing cost for his summer internship; I cover the cost for food and transportation (if flying). He does not work during the school year, he has an internship in his major and he receives credit.
He’s frugal and usually buys used books. He can charge it to me if he wants or take care of it himself. He’s going into his senior year and I’ve only paid for one book so far.
For our eldest, we paid tuition, room and board and bought any toiletries, snacks and generic school supplies for him to take back to school with him each fall and after the major breaks. He was responsible for fraternity fees if he wanted to join, and for any personal expenses that arose while at school, such as books and entertainment. He worked summers and refereed for a local soccer league near campus and also worked an on-campus job at times to cover books and fraternity fees, and apparently to pay for a very nice spring break trip. Out of school year earnings money, he also made payments on the student loan included in his FA package. On the few occasions when he took public transportation home (like for Thanksgiving), he paid for it despite our offering to cover the cost.
D was an athlete at a very competitive Div. 1 program. As a distance runner, she was in season all the school year. She worked summers, but we did not expect her to work during the academic year as her sport already required some 25 hours a week. However, she did work in her house kitchen for extra spending money for things she didn’t think we’d want to pay for, like expensive entertainment and gifts for friends.
D2 is not a strong student and has weak executive function skills, but also plans to play sports in college. We won’t allow her to work, even if she wants to.
Family finances matter. Only 10 hours a week is not too much. Grunge jobs perhaps (I knew cleaning bathrooms was one work/study job for some). I had some scholarships and who knows how my parents managed the rest back in the day when one could afford to work one’s way through college, then had dorm food service jobs. I was on a shoestring budget and did not do as much nor did I have clothes et al most did. Became rich enough that costs were not an issue for son (in fact, did not have him list his school for NMS- others needed the money I figured). He was and is frugal- by choice, not necessity.
Make it your D’s choice. Have her figure out her priorities for expenses she wants above those needed. The ten hours per week will not need to interfere with her academics at all. In fact, it may make her more efficient with her use of time. So many well educated people- including doctors and lawyers, served their fellow students doing all sorts of low level jobs in college. If having a job means a more comfortable lifestyle it is certainly worth it.
My kids were given allowance if they worked at minimum 10 hrs/week. They were not eligible for work study, so they had to look a bit harder to get a job. The money they earned plus their allowance were for fun money and personal toiletries. I covered everything from books, computer, trips home, clothes, sorority dues, etc.
I thought it was important for them to have work experience. For D2, her on campus job led to her summer internships, and helped her to get her full time job.
One of my kids has a babysitting gig. It pays much more per hour than a campus job would.
Like @oldfort, we are able to provide our kids with tuition, R&B< books, computer, trips home, and an allowance to cover things like toiletries, haircuts, and occasional night/meal out. My kids have worked anywhere from 10-15 hours per week anyway to fund trips, concert tickets, and other splurgy type stuff. One has even grown savings during college. I don’t think it is challenging to squeeze 5-10 hrs of work in per week (more than that might lead to diminishing returns). Neither is work study. At one school, its easy to get campus jobs even without work study, at the other it isn’t as easy.
I think we’re similar to a lot of other families on here. We pay phone, she stays on our health insurance, and we pay for flights back and forth. (When she detoured to visit friends, it was on her dime.) I also make sure she has appropriate clothing for her activities and events. She pays for any books that aren’t covered by her scholarship, and for her incidentals.
Our plan was to evaluate having a school-year job after the first semester. She decided not to, and will not have one during her first semester of sophomore year. But she’s worked every summer, saved her money, and can pay for her responsibilities with her savings, so it is absolutely her choice.
Our oldest had a tuition scholarship with a 3.25 GPA requirement in an engineering program. We covered all other necessities (r&b, books, clothing, toiletries, travel home, etc) and told her that her job was keeping her scholarship. She had some savings of her own for fun money. She had a credit card on our account with permission to use it for necessities. Once it was clear that she was fine for grades, she started working on campus. This summer she had a paid internship. She’s been taking more and more responsibility for her own expenses and we are taking more of a backup role. We are still covering bills from the university. She paid for her summer housing for the internship and all her own food. She is buying her own groceries now that she has a campus apartment with a kitchen. She buys more of her own clothes.
It depends on so many factors but I’ve honestly never met a student who couldn’t work for their own day to day expenses. Many didn’t because they were funded by the bank of parents but they could have. 10-12 hours a week is not going to make or break anyone.
I put together scholarships, FA, and working full time to get through college (I graduated in 2013 so I’m not a parent who did this in the 80s). My parents would kick in gas money now and then when they could afford it (rarely). I still had time for an internship and a social life (started dating someone my sophomore year and we married last summer). I would NOT recommend anyone working full time while going to school full time, but a part time job is a good experience for a variety of reasons IMO.
When I was in college, I did not work. I studied in most of my downtime and took very hard classes. It turns out that my siblings were hanging out with friends, going out to eat, etc in their downtime so my parents sent them off to get on campus jobs which they did. So, in our case, the work requirement varied by child depending on how much time they actually had available for working. My parents were not angry with the others for not studying more, they just saw an opportunity to provide more “structure” for them!
D decided how much she needed to work by the college she choose. We have a set amount of money we knew we could afford, and she knew that number before choosing which colleges to apply to. Of the schools she got into, the lowest cost options would have meant no Stafford loans, no working during the school year, and our contribution could have gone to top-of-the-line housing and the yoga studio membership she would love to have.
BUT, she choose a much more expensive option. Now, our contribution plus the Stafford and school aid barely cover tuition/fees, economy room, and 10 meal a week plan. We will also cover her phone (family plan) and health insurance. The rest is on her… her choice. This includes books and transportation (we live 5000 miles away). She is on track to have saved $4k working full time this summer and plans to work during the school year. She did not receive work study.
Now, all that said, we love her and don’t want her to be miserable. I’ve bought dorm items beyond our contribution amount as gifts. Ditto for clothes. We used our miles instead of her money for the first two plane flights. I already have general plans for monthly care packages. I want them to be considered gifts, not expectations.
We pay/paid for all school related items (including books) and room/board. We kept them on our health insurance, cell phone plans and car insurance. They had cars after their first year. They paid for everything else (fraternity dues, eating out, concerts, clothes, shoes, gas, whatever). I did buy my oldest a professional wardrobe his first year working at his internship. We paid for them to fly home for breaks but if they went elsewhere it was on them.
They did not qualify for work study jobs.
The oldest played football, was the VP of his fraternity, maintained a strong GPA, majored in math and economics and still worked around 10 hours a week. He worked a paying internship in the summer so he had plenty of money for extras. I don’t think he had to work during the school year but he wanted to. He had plenty of money for a security deposit when he moved into his first apartment.
The middle did not work a regular job his first few years of school although he does play some gigs where he gets paid (he’s a music major). He works in the summers and saves enough for each school year. He was planning to work this school year but he landed an internship (not a paying one) that is related to his career interests in sports. We told him that we would help him out if he runs short at the end of the year but he says he has enough money for his own personal expenses.
I think this sort of thing varies by family and by student. Some kids have no problem working and maintaining grades. I certainly think its ok for kids to work during the school year but some of them don’t have to do so.
Not a judgement, just a question: A lot of posters here seem to pay for their kids education related expenses - tuition, room & board - but not books. Curious as to why not books? To me that seems to be part of academic need. If its purely a matter of not having the $ for it, I get that. Just wondering if there is some other rationale I’m missing. I know a lot of us seem to do what was done for us. My parents paid for all my education expenses, and I do the same for my own kids - paying it forward. Just a little surprised to see the majority of responders here lump books into student funded “extras” as opposed to required academic needs.
I’ll add that our families book cost per year has never exceeded $300 or so per year (often less). The kids are good about renting, buying from friends, buying used, online, etc.
@doschicos I think the relatively low cost (especially if some are rented, purchased used, or borrowed) is exactly why a lot of parents are turning over that responsibility to their kids. It’s one piece of the financial picture that is affordable to most kids who work a part-time job, even if only for the summer. We think it makes our D1 feel like she’s got some skin in the game, so to speak…
We had a reason for including books. We wanted out kids to be responsible for one required thing for their college educations. We paid tuition, fees, room, board, health insurance, cell phone, and transportation home. The only “essential” we didn’t cover was books.
Direct expenses: covered at 100%. I didn’t need for S to take a student loan and I don’t believe in taking loans just because, or to have dubious “skin in the game.”
Dorm supplies/computer/clothes/miscellaneous before he heads off: I paid within my own parameters and he didn’t ask for anything specific anyway-didn’t amount to that much and I wanted to do it. It was his grad present I suppose.
Cell phone: I will continue to pay the bill, but not for phones-he has his over 2 year old cracked 5C unless he wants to replace it himself. Maybe a Christmas gift?
Books, laundry, medical, and transportation home: I will pay, needs not wants and needs are on me until he graduates.
Everything else: On him, and we will see how it goes. Even though I am paying everything else he doesn’t have much for savings, just his summer earnings. His college only pays $7.25 for student jobs and I am leaving it up to him if he wants to invest his time for a small paycheck every week or just try to be extra thrifty with what he has.
I think it matters a lot how much a kid has in savings when they head to school. If they have a huge nest egg(I have heard that many kids get staggering sums for graduation gifts) then it is a lot easier to tell them they need to pay for their own books, for example.
My oldest daughter started college in the fall of 2014. She had money that my grandparents had left her for college expenses. She chose to go to a state school an hour away where her tuition was paid for, books were $45.00 per class and she had a small stipend for dorm fees. She did decide to live in the dorm. Up until that point she had a part-time job that she had held all through her senior year of high school. She had little to no savings from the job but did get a nice amount of graduation money (some of which was stolen by a “friend”).
The decision to live in the dorm for that first year ate away at quite a bit of her money. She did not look for a job at school and quickly discovered that having no money sucked. We did not contribute to her incidentals. We had wanted her to live at home and commute. Our contribution was to be room and board at our home, health insurance, we pay for car insurance, we had given her the car at no charge, and she was on our cell phone plan. Being young and stubborn she felt it was a horrible plan. With in 2 months of school starting she was coming home Thursday night through Sunday and decided to work where she had during high school.
Last year she opted not to live in the dorm and live at home. She increased her hours at work to full-time. She has very expensive tastes and we will not cater to that. Working that much has allowed her to purchase her luxuries, spend a summer abroad, and get braces. This year she will continue to live at home but will be cutting her hours so that she can participate in theater.
Our younger daughter has chosen a smaller private school. Her college saving will be eaten up with in the first semester. She will live on campus. We will help her by giving loans that she will be expected to pay us back. We will be requiring her to do work study but perhaps starting second semester so she can get a feel for the amount of work she will be required to do and learn time management skills. Her graduation money will be used for her incidentals.
We feel college is a huge investment and we will help with what we can. I feel that by having our girls work it makes the experience that much more important and they have skin in the game so to speak.
We pay for almost everything out of DS’s college fund – tuition, room& board, books, fraternity dues, an allowance for spending money, technology (computers, I-clicker, etc). We also used college savings for expenses relating to his first year such as bedding, towels, and dorm stuff.
We pay out of our own funds for flights home, most clothing, care packages. He is on our health and dental insurance and we pay any medical or deal expenses. Cell phone is on our plan and we pay that also.
DS does not have a job during the school year. He is a varsity athlete and a double engineering major as well as an officer in both his social and professional fraternities and although he may be able to fit in 5-10 hours of work it is not necessary.
He does work during the summer and over winter break. He uses that money to pay for car insurance, gas, parking pass, and repairs. He also uses it for spring break trips. He doesn’t spend it all though.
Our deal is whatever is left over from his college fund is his after graduation so he does have some incentive to keep costs down, whether through renting or buying used books rather than new, not using all of his spending money allowance, and best of all, getting a nice merit scholarship to offset tuition!