I keep seeing people mention working in the summers because students won't be in class, do other states not have mandatory summer classes? My school mandated a certain number of summer courses and they were a lot harder than my regular school year classes. I think I was busier in the summer than regular semesters often. Also some majors run year round, but I'm sure that varies by program.
Oh and my best college job was being an RA.
Paid room and board and a little extra for really not that much work.
No, mandatory summer classes aren't a typical thing -- at least not for most majors. Some of the big-deal scholarships offer paid travel opportunities during the summer, but that's not really a widespread thing. My daughter is a nursing major, and she'll have a mandatory summer school class at the end of the summer before she begins her student nursing as a junior; however, it's a five-week course, leaving more than half the summer free.
I was an RA too, and it was one of the best things I did financially during my college years.
Just wanted to chime in about on-campus jobs with a suggestion not too many people think about. When I was in college, after working one semester in food service I was able to get on the banquet list. That meant I could sign up when I wanted to work according to my own schedule - could be twice a week, could be twice a month, it didn't matter to them. I encouraged my college student to look for that kind of job. He's just starting his second year and is on the "events parking" list. In addition to "events," tell your students to look for catering, babysitting, etc. opportunities where you can just take one time jobs.
Yes, campuses offer lots of opportunities like that. One that a couple of my friends had back when I was in college was writing parking tickets. They agreed to work X number of hours /write X number of tickets each week, and they could choose their own hours. So if they had an hour to kill between classes, they could walk through the commuter lot and "work" for that one hour.
Opportunities exist, but students do have to search for them.
General annoyance about a misconception I think my parents' generation often has with the way college is now:
People often compare college life to the way it was decades ago with no idea what they are talking about, particularly if one had a bit of a fluffy degree and they're trying to push their habits onto someone with a very rigorous major.
School was cheaper then. Less credits were required for a degree. Things have changed and not working because there are simply too many classes is not being lazy imho.
As an undergrad I took 18 credits most semesters because engineering has a LOT of classes. I had about 20 credits more in required classes than my friends with other classes and that is a courseload where I already came in with some AP credit for general ed requirements or I would have had to take even more.
So that's roughly 18 hours of class a week unless one of them is a lab which could add an extra 2. There's a rule of thumb which our professors told us day one where you should spend 3 hours prepping/homework/studying for every hour in class and that was completely true for my major. So add 54 hours on. Actually, even go as low as 30 extra hours a week for the exceptional student. That's 48-72 hours for a 7 day week just on classwork for the clever to average student. It's already a full a time job and yes some people can tack on an extra 10-20 hours for a part time job but I don't think it's unreasonable that a lot can't and shouldn't. It just really bothers me when people act like college is some trivial thing. If you're doing it right, it's not.
Your generation can be "generally annoyed" as long as mine can find your thought process a bit naive.
You're absolutely right that school was more affordable then, but I can't agree with much else. Decades ago people took 18-hour semesters so they could graduate on time, people enrolled in time-consuming labs, classes were tough then too, and people chose challenging majors then too. The "three hours outside class" rule was oft-touted in the 80s, just as it is now -- and it is good advice. Add in that no one owned a computer, so communication and research was much less "instant". The college world isn't nearly so new and different as you believe.
Having lived through my college years and seeing my daugther begin college,
I do think she felt more pressure during the application process, and although she didn't have to worry about the money, I think most of her classmates worry about it more than my generation did -- but her overall experience doesn't seem to be more or less difficult academically than mine was. The biggest difference seems to be that technology has made a number of things much easier; registration is one example. Whereas registration for me was literally an all-day affair, and I spent the whole day standing in various lines trying to get into classes, she punches a few numbers into the computer and completes her registration in minutes. Some things are much easier these days, other things are more difficult -- but really, the stress level and the work level haven't changed all that much.
Whether a student works or not is dependant upon a number of variables: Where he's living, his personal spending habits, his appetite (my daughter's RA told her that girls often have trouble using up all their meal plan money, whereas they guys run out of food money in November), how much his parents are willing to give him, whether he has a girlfriend . . . But I can't buy into the "it's so different now" argument.
