<p>I think a kid can contribute this amount. I think for a financial aid student, that amount plus the grants available should be ALL state universities should be allowed to charge. Let’s get these kids the kind if education we were able to afford with little debt. </p>
<p>It is a serious problem for some students to come up with that expected student contribution. Those schools that have a no loan policy for financial aid, may be able to use some of the Direct Loan entitlement to defray that expense. Those that do not have a lot of work study in their aid packages can also work during the school year. But the blunt fact is that there are some places in the US where jobs are slim pickings and if a student lives in such an area and is going to a college in such a situation, that student contribution is a big problem, especially when work study and loans are already in the financial aid package so that the student cannot borrow or work during the year to meet EFC. </p>
<p>Bottom line: if that $3000 gap is a serious problem, the school should come off the list BEFORE the student starts college.</p>
<p>I’m just so impressed by all these high school kids/college students finding $10/hr summer jobs! As a recent college graduate who job-hunted for a couple months in my area, I was very pleased and relieved to find a part-time job at $9/hr. </p>
<p>I’m glad my school didn’t expect me to come up with $3000 a year, because most of what I earned from my work study job went toward traveling (across the country flights home), books, phone bill, toiletries, etc., as well as occasionally helping out my mother with rent or car expenses. </p>
<p>Saving up the $2600 that I need is very difficult. I work a minimum wage job at a market and do roughly 30 hours a week and with saving $200 per week (my check is around $220) I will only be able to leave with $2000 and that’s with minimal expenses. The $20 I take each week pays for my phone bill and maybe for a snack during my break.</p>
<p>I cosign those in the areas where minimum wage jobs are scarce, particularly those above the 7.50 range. My daughter goes to school out of state, didn’t get home until finals were over at the end of May and has to get back in August. She pounded some serious pavement and found a conventional minimum wage job. The research jobs at the University here only pay a flat 1200 the entire summer. That wasn’t an option. Her hours are all over the place as someone upthread mentioned. They will not schedule anyone full-time. She is a violinist as well, and has to put serious practice time in over the summer ,as she has to re audition in August for Orchestra against musicians from Julliard. Earning the money as far as we were concerned was chump change. Her school recommends 2500 but thats nothing in NYC. She’s a hard worker, is frugal with her money, and that’s all we ask. She had a few scholarships last year and the National Merit one so that helped. She tucked away money from music competition wins and paid performances. We knew when she chose to attend school there what the expenses would be and as long as she’s responsible and works hard we supplement here and there. We were lucky with the grant shr received, so the biggest expense has been travel. I too am surprised at the $10 an hour jobs mentioned here. </p>
<p>My S2 has a summer internship that is unpaid. It is doing exactly what he wants to do upon graduation, working at a major broadcasting station in a large city. He is living at home this summer so he won’t have to pay rent in the city, and is up at 5 a.m. every day to take a commuter bus to his internship. He gets home the same way, arriving about 7 p.m. LONG day. He has picked up a few odd jobs on weekends, but not making $3,000. However, his resume is looking boffo!</p>
<p>There are some Research internships that pay exactly this - $3k. They are very hard to get into.
that is why I have advised over and over that the easiest and the best student’s contribution is to get Merit awards. That require not only to perform very well in school, but also to choose your UG smartly. The same applicant will get very different awards at different UGs, including none and full tuition.
Actually in our place it is close to impossible to get anything during summers, the dirty jobs, paid internships, unpaid volunteering positions. You got to be very persistant to get to volunteer, keep on trying. Many places have waiting lines that are several months long to volunteer. As I said, the best bet (and free summers) is for Merits. </p>
<p>S2 applied for temp jobs this summer and hasn’t gotten even a nibble. Also applied to restaurants (he has experience as a cook). He got one call to work for July 4th weekend only, and we were already out of town at my nephew’s wedding. Yesterday he got desperate and sold some of our old stuff (credit to the Bag a Week thread) for cash. I told him if he got it cleaned up, hauled over there and sold, he could keep the proceeds. He also learned that just because he wants to charge $50 for a college dorm fridge doesn’t mean he’ll get that much…</p>
<p>There is a local bias here about hiring college students for food/retail jobs who leave at the end of the summer. If you are going to school locally, it’s easier to get a gig and maintain it during the year (and employers are more amenable to working around your class schedule). Score one for attending college close to home!</p>
<p>My cousin’s DD has a difficult time getting 30-40 hours of work each week during the summer. The hours that her jobs give are not consistent week to week which makes it difficult to have more than one job, but neither job is guaranteed to give 30 hours. What is frightening to me, is that there are a number of businesses that operate that way for ALL of their employees, making it very difficult or even impossible for workers to make a living wage. I know my son’s company is very careful not to give overtime as well as watching hours to make sure certain employees do not become full time in status. Why they mix up the schedules and hours so that people can’t get another job to make ends meet, I don’t know.</p>
<p>My rising sophomore son managed to network his way into a $500 per week internship, but I sympathize because my high school age son could not find anything. Once he is driving he will take a year around job that he can ramp up during the summer. It is rough out there.</p>
<p>One place that seems to hire college kids and seasonal help is UPS. May be worth investigating. My son’s friend got a job assisting drivers. I also saw ads for warehouse help paying well above minimum. </p>
<p>Another seasonal option is valet parking. We have casinos that hire a lot of them. But I think you are totally depending on tips to get above minimum. It could be a good second job since they operate very long hours and weekends.</p>
<p>Another idea . . .if you have high SAT scores, get trained to teach for Princeton Review. Not full time, but the pay is north of $20/hr for teaching. Tutoring pays more although you need to teach classes first before you can tutor.</p>
<p>Good luck to everyone!</p>
<pre><code>Not to derail the topic, but I keep hearing the term resume building being thrown around. While ideally I realize these kids want to do something related in their field, research, volunteer work, internships, isn’t there something to be gained by working at a conventional job and being successful at it? My daughter has learned an incredible amount at her summer job. She’s learned about time management, multitasking, how to deal with difficult customers, how to switch gears when plans change, grace under pressure, humility. She’s seen many employees not even last a day. I’m convinced she could certainly work any emergency room lol. I was watching undercover boss and it cracks me up to see these seemingly put together CEOs , not be able to handle a drive through at a restaurant. I could be off track, but I’ve noticed a tendency by some to look down on these jobs if they’re not of the research/ intern category.
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<p>Personally, I love to see waiting tables and similar jobs for a summer or two on a kid’s resume. It’s tough work and it tells me the student isn’t coddled and is willing to hustle. Also, I think there are some useful skills to be learned from such jobs. </p>
<p>@TVenee - I agree with you! That could be another whole thread topic. Just yesterday my neighbor was asking some questions about my son’s internship this summer - she went on to say she hopes her kids have better quality summer experiences than she did, meaning working minimum wage jobs at the local grocery, pool, etc. This woman is smart, ambitious and has a fair amount of hustle - enabling her to recently step away from a great job to start her own company. She’s kind of forgotten where she’s come from so to speak. And, in talking about my son, she forgets that he’s had plenty of summers working at a less glamorous job than his current internship. Kuddos to your daughter - she will take away a lot from this summer job. </p>
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<p>Re: family commitments – if it’s that important, and the family can afford it, they can give the student the extra money they would have earned during the time they’re going on vacation with the family. </p>
<p>The point is that a student <em>can</em> earn $3K if it’s their top priority. And if there’s nowhere else that that $3K can come from for a particular family, they probably aren’t taking the student on vacations that will interfere with their summer work schedule. </p>
<p>So true! Finances are a family thing, usually. I mean, if a family is going to Spain or mom is belittling work at the Kids Kraft Kamp then this is not their problem anyway. Just pay it, the school doesn’t care. </p>
<p>Also, the schools that are “expecting” as student summer earnings contribution of about $3K as part of their financial aid package are putting that toward the full COA. The full COA will include costs for books, travel and incidentals that are not direct costs paid to the school. If the student can’t quite earn the full 3K, they can probably squeak by anyhow by spending less than the predicted amount on books and incidentals. </p>
<p>IME the expected student contribution is usually closer to $2K for freshmen, and it goes up in later years.</p>
<p>Things that come up are always, always, always a problem during summer jobs. My son one year got a marvelous opportunity to go with some friends and a family for travel. But it meant losing time from work. They would not let him out of his commitment to go away and then come back to work, so he ended his summer work early, and then joined the travelers several days after they already set out. So, he did get a few last extra days in, but still got to do the trip. Still he was short on what he had expected to make that summer, not to mention spending money on the trip. If he had been from a family who was on the edge of being able to make the costs work out for college, he simply would not have been able to do this. </p>
<p>It’s very difficult for those who have little or no margin in the costs. My son couldn’t juggle his class load/commitments and work one term. The job had to go. There are kids who get $4K in workstudy awards, which could be an essential part of making the finances work out. THey HAVE to work, they HAVE to get that money or they aren’t going to make ends meet at the school. It’s no accident that the lower income kids tend to have a higher drop out rate, and not do as well academically. Have some unexpected expenses, bad luck, and it’s a catastrophe.</p>
<p>@TVenee I agree that any work experience is valuable in terms of work ethic, people skills, problem solving etc. There are fields, though, where you need to build up internship/ shadow or entry level hours in your proposed profession in order to apply to graduate school, have contacts in the field and get better paying jobs in your field in the future.</p>
<p>Coincidentally, I set up an account at the government’s social security web page today to see the pitiful amount they will pay me when I am old. On the site is a listing of your earnings since you started earning money. During my undergrad years, I earned around $5,000 every summer. That was 30 years ago! Surely kids today can earn $3,000 in a summer.</p>