Our daughter's a college junior this year. Over the last couple years, she's found that several scholarships (especially in the $500-$1000 range) go begging. Fill out a website application, churn out an essay in an hour or two and upload it, then get a check in a couple months. The little-known scholarships tend to be endowments set up by alumni or local chapters of the professional societies and they're just not very well publicized. The national scholarship search websites can help, but students should ask the college financial aid office for a complete list of all their local scholarships... and start writing.
One of her most entertaining moves has been giving campus tours for $12/hour. (She'd pay them to do it, so she feels the money is just bonus.) It's taught her public-speaking skills, people skills, thinking on her feet (literally), and how to tactfully answer impromptu questions. (She's also become extraordinarily skilled at walking backwards, although that's more of a party trick.) Now she views her discretionary spending through the lens of "How many tours do I want to give to be able to buy this?"
Her university's campus dorms don't have enough room for all the students, so a large minority of the juniors typically get "kicked off campus". This led to major angst and unhappiness and drama as our daughter's decision time approached, but somewhat to everyone's surprise it's turned out to be a great deal. She rooms with two other students in a 2BR/2BA apartment in one of America's largest cities only a couple miles off campus... with more space & amenities for less monthly expense than the dorm. (Of course she commutes by bicycle.) She's even buying and cooking her own food for less than the cost of the servery's meal plan. Best of all, she's not dealing with the drunks and the stoners and the partiers and the midwatch fire alarms... and whatever else she hasn't felt like sharing with us.
She's on a Navy ROTC scholarship for tuition & fees, so we pay "just" room & board (and some textbook/printing fees). To prevent this off-campus move from turning into a lifestyle gimme grab, we told her that we'd pay her the room & board money that we'd normally pay to the college. The catch was that she had to manage her budget on only two lump-sum payments a year, just like the college used to bill us. She could live large and eat cheap, or live cheap and eat out every day, or figure out a third option. She also had to stretch the budget to fit the entire year, not just the academic semester calendar. Whatever she decides to do, she gets to keep whatever funds she didn't use.
So this year she's learned to:
- seek and set up an off-campus apartment
- parse the paragraphs of a lease
- arrange for utilities
- negotiate cost-sharing with roommates
- recruit short-term guest roommates during summers/holidays
-
dumpster dive procure frugal furniture
- DIY home improvement, maintenance, repairs
- buy food in bulk and practice once-a-week cooking
- eat healthy (cheaper than junk food in the long run)
- become very organized (can't just run back to the dorm to retrieve a forgotten textbook)
- become very efficient with her time (can't just run back to the dorm to crash between classes)
- commute by bicycle (and contend with city drivers)
- take better care of her stuff (she lives out of a backpack)
- be more responsible for her personal security
... and, oh yeah, I think she's managed to attend a class or two on civil engineering. I'm not sure. Her grades are her business, not ours.
One of the fringe benefits is that she doesn't have to move out of the dorm and put her stuff in storage every May, then reverse the process in August. I don't think she's ever going back to the dorm life.
She's accomplished a lot of growing up this year, and we're no longer parenting a teen-- we're coaching a young adult. She's seen what some of her classmates have racked up in student loans, which has raised her self-awareness of her own budgeting & spending. To the university's credit they're starting to promise families "a four-year degree with no student loans", but I'm not sure of the details.
When our daughter starts to feel bummed by her first-world problems, she can consider
coming home to Leeward Community College and working shifts at Zippy's her roommates' examples. One is on a student visa from an Asian country and hasn't been home in nearly three years. Her family's financial support for college was the one-way plane ticket-- the rest is up to her. Our daughter's other roommate is an extremely talented musician (as in "top ten metropolitan orchestras") who practices 6-8 hours per day. She expects to graduate to a very fulfilling life of music... and very low income. She's paying for college on her own, too, and it involves a lot of work-study. But she spends summers playing her instrument on street corners, and it's common for her to clear $100/hour.
Ironically, despite our daughter's nascent life skills, she takes great comfort in knowing that there'll be a job waiting for her when she graduates.
For those who feel that the American college system is fatally flawed both financially and academically, I have two questions:
Why are so many foreign students coming here to study? Our daughter's college's student body is over 25% international.
Why are so few Americans going abroad for four years of study?
In a rational capitalist society, you'd expect that at least the northern half of the U.S. would be spending their college dollars in Canada. If they're not, then there must be some other reason that they're buying American.
In the end, it is the student & family decision, but there is a relatively simple process (not just "pros & cons") that can be followed so that at least they are well aware of the choices they are making.
You'd think that websites like College Board and College Confidential would already be all over this.