Ask Slashdot: Hungry Students, How Common?

Gud (78635) points to this story in the Washington Post about students having trouble with paying for both food and school. "I recall a number of these experiences from my time as grad student. I remember choosing between eating, living in bad neighborhoods, putting gas in the car, etc. Me and my fellow students still refer to ourselves as the 'starving grad students.' Today we laugh about these experiences because we all got good jobs that lifted us out of poverty, but not everyone is that fortunate. I wonder how many students are having hard time concentrating on their studies due to worrying where the next meal comes from. In the article I found the attitude of collage admins to the idea of meal plan point sharing, telling as how little they care about anything else but soak students & parents for fees and pester them later on with requests for donations. Last year I did the college tour for my first child, after reading the article, some of the comments I heard on that tour started making more sense. Like 'During exams you go to the dining hall in the morning, eat and study all day for one swipe' or 'One student is doing study on what happens when you live only on Ramen noodles!'

How common is 'food insecurity in college or high school'? What tricks can you share with current students?"

Comments

Re:I'm not worried about poor students

[uncqual]

What I completely fail to understand is how on Earth can a 22-year-old graduate –as you say– with US$150K in loans. That is just insane. And sick.

If one borrows as much as they can and doesn't focus on their studies, that's not insane or sick, likely just a sign of questionable judgement.

For example, in California the estimated annual costs for a student living off campus attending a UC school is $29,200 including tuition, fees, books, supplies, room, board, transportation, and personal expenses (some of these of course will vary depending on which campus the student is attending). About half of this ($14,700) is for educational related expenses while the rest is for ordinary living expenses that one would incur even if not attending school.

For a fulltime, four year course of study, this amounts to about $120,000 - assuming no grants or scholarships. So, graduating with $150K of debt in California suggests the student is attending an excessively expensive school, fails to work part time to at least cover summer expenses, spends excessively, and/or didn't complete in four years.

The UC system is well respected, and some campuses are very well regarded (Berkeley for example). However, the Cal State system also offers "real" degrees and costs even less.

As well, in some cases, a clever student will likely be able to figure out how to fulfill some general ed requirements at their local Community College reducing costs yet further.

Of course, $150K would be nothing for advanced degrees/training such as Med School (but, only a fool would build up such debt if the career wouldn't allow them to pay the debt off from earnings fairly quickly and, from a life long viewpoint, result in net earnings greater than not pursuing an advanced degree unless it is their desire to donate their education/life to a particular interest or education is a hobby for them).