How much can a student realistically make working 8-10 hours a week during the school year and full time during the summer? We’re crunching numbers here before final acceptances and financial aid packages show up.
My S is a programmer planning to major in CS. He naturally gravitates toward tech jobs, and he has paid coding, IT, and tutoring experience under his belt. We were encouraged to hear that one of his friends is at Berkeley already has a CS summer job lined up that will cover most/all of his tuition for next year.
Of course, we realize that his job opportunities will depend on where he matriculates and what kind of summer job he lands. And we also realize that he’ll probably use some of his earnings for spending money as well.
Would love feedback from veteran parents. Thanks in advance!
My kid worked the highest paying job on her campus ($15 an hour). The most she earned in any year was $5000 and that included FULL TIME work for the full summer at the school.
The summer job numbers totally depend on the kind of gig your kid manages to land. But summer CS internships at top firms can pay very well indeed. My D made close to $12K summer after her sophomore year (with free housing) and about $18K summer after her junior year (with subsidized housing), but that latter job was at Microsoft, which is one of a small handful of firms that pay kids as much as $7K/month for summer internships. Those are all pre-tax dollars, of course, and she had some expenses, so she certainly didn’t end up with those amounts in her bank account at the end of the summer.
It really depends. My nephew can make $1000 in a weekend as a referee, but that’s working two 10 hour days, and it’s not available every weekend. Last summer he worked a regular job on a food truck, ref’d a few weekends, and went to summer school. Made quite a bit.
I think the area where people overestimate income is during the school year. You can say you are going to work 10 per weeks for 15 weeks, but it really becomes 9 hours a few of those weeks, and probably for only 12 weeks as exams come up, snow days, thanksgiving break, illness, etc.
I’d base the estimates on what your son has done so far. Has his work been steady. does he work 30 hours per week, does he have other interests he wants to spend time on in the summer (golf, band, vacation, comic con?) Will his summer be 15 weeks? 12 weeks? My daughter gets out of school in early May but not many summer jobs start that early. She then has to go back in early Aug, so she only get about 10 weeks to work.
My son made a lot of money as a computer science intern. Summer after freshman year (2008) he made $25 an hour. The next summer I think he made twice that and they flew him out and gave him a housing allowance. The final summer he made even more at Google (interns are now making something like $7000 a month according to Glass Door- and again they flew him out and gave him housing. He made so much that summer he put some of it in a Roth IRA. The more experience he has now, the more likely he is to find a good summer position. The first summer is the hardest.
Schools that “meet full need” generally assume a student work contribution of $3,000 to $5,000 per year.
Of course, a CS major could get much higher paying paid internships in the summers, though the probability of getting such is not as high in the frosh/soph summer as in later summers. But it is best to stick with the more conservative estimate of $3,000 to $5,000 per year when budgeting, since getting a higher paying paid CS internship is not guaranteed.
Also, if the student attends a Florida public university, the summer session requirement (even if the student could graduate in 8 or fewer semesters without any summer courses) can impede earning money in the summer.
I think for a typical student making a typical amount of money, $4k-5k is reasonable and realistic.
Since your son is interested in CS, he’ll probably make much more than the typical but for the first year, I’d say that’s reasonable as many of the higher paying internships want upperclassmen.
Wow, this is a lot more money that our kids ever made. They were lucky to clear a few thousand, working part time and summer! I think it’s better to underestimate than overestimate, as it’s hard to know what competition there will be and whether kiddo will change interests/majors.
THANK YOU all for your helpful feedback! I had budgeted $5,000 per year, thinking it would be conservative and reliable amount. I’d rather underestimate and be pleasantly surprised than overestimate and be disappointed.
He did some CS tutoring a while back and got paid $40/hour. We didn’t set that rate; his teacher who referred the student did. We were suprised, but no complaints here. I am not counting on his landing a similar paying gig…I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
