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With Financial Aid Declining, Many College Students Don't Have Enough Money To Eat, Studies Show, Even Though About 40 Percent Are Also Working (npr.org)
As students enter college this fall, many will hunger for more than knowledge. Up to half of college students in recent published studies say they either are not getting enough to eat or are worried about it. From a report: This food insecurity is most prevalent at community colleges, but it's common at public and private four-year schools as well. Student activists and advocates in the education community have drawn attention to the problem in recent years, and the food pantries that have sprung up at hundreds of schools are perhaps the most visible sign. Some schools nationally also have instituted the Swipe Out Hunger program, which allows students to donate their unused meal plan vouchers, or "swipes," to other students to use at campus dining halls or food pantries.
That's a start, say analysts studying the problem of campus hunger, but more systemwide solutions are needed. "If I'm sending my kid to college, I want more than a food pantry," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice. [...] According to a survey of UC Berkeley students, 38 percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of graduate students deal with food insecurity at some point during the academic year, Ruben Canedo, a university employee who chairs the campus's basic needs committee, says.
That's a start, say analysts studying the problem of campus hunger, but more systemwide solutions are needed. "If I'm sending my kid to college, I want more than a food pantry," says Sara Goldrick-Rab, a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University in Philadelphia, and founder of the Hope Center for College, Community and Justice. [...] According to a survey of UC Berkeley students, 38 percent of undergraduates and 23 percent of graduate students deal with food insecurity at some point during the academic year, Ruben Canedo, a university employee who chairs the campus's basic needs committee, says.
When I was in school. The right wing in America said it would be fine and the kids would just take responsibility and work their way through college like they did (ignoring that they all had higher wages adjusted for inflation and 1/5th the tuition). What drives me nuts is we all knew this was coming and just said fuck it. And all we got for it was some paltry tax cuts that expire.
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Tax cuts only expire if the Democrats force them to be. All the Republicans wanted to make them permanent but they didn't have enough votes at the time... they should after November though, given what the Democrats are campaigning on these days.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Nope...it's a fact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_tuition_in_the_United_States#/media/File:InflationTuitionMedicalGeneral1978to2008.png
Supply-Demand-Price is a formula that comes to a natural balance. The demand for a degree was always high while the supply of available admission seats was low. Despite that, without the availability of student loan money that meant that you were either on scholarship, parents paying for it or you were working your way through it.
Student loan money changed the formula to "how much are you willing to borrow" and removed the price constraint on the supply / demand economics. If people can't afford to pay a particular price, the price CANNOT go up without leaving an excess of supply. By ensuring that anybody willing to borrow money could pay for the education, demand skyrocketed.
This isn't a false narrative. In 1978 Congress passed MISAA and in 1979 guaranteed banks a favorable return on the loans. The explosion went from there.
The EXACT same thing happened in the medical industry as employer sponsor insurance programs removed individuals from ever seeing the price for their health care options.
The moment that you provide an outside money source to separate consumers from the price of what they are consuming, price sensitivity goes away and the service becomes basic supply and demand with no price constraint. Every aspect of the US economy where this has happened has seen costs explode.
There's no narrative involved in mathematical outcomes.
That's just tuition. Most of the costs are hidden in administration fees. In Louisiana for example, there's a program called TOPS that gives free tuition to state universities for anyone graduating high school with a 2.5 GPA and an 18 on the ACT. That program began about 15-20 years ago. Since then tuition has increased 1000% (since taxpayers are now on the hook for it) and they've added a $5000 administrative fee to students that isn't covered by TOPS. That single-semester administrative fee is double what I paid for an entire year of tuition, dorm and meal plan in 1992. Meanwhile, all of that money has gone to resort-styling housing, ludicrous rec facilities (floating river pools, rock-climbing facilities, etc), administration buildings that resemble Fortune 500 executive suites, etc. The library is still falling down since I was there though. Not a nickel for that or the actual classrooms. Oh, and they've created an entire lobbying department with a staff whose sole job is to extract even more taxdollars from the public each year.
Ironically the modern tools used these days to fix cars, raise crops and cook food are all based on technologies invented by academics of the past. Without us, the world would still be living in the dark ages. And as our society continues to move away from intellectual honesty ("feels > reals") and secular democracy, every day people's lives will continue to get shorter and more brutal while the wealthy elite grab more and more power. I find it amusing that the tide of anti-intellectualism seems to have taken its strongest hold in online tech-oriented communities like Slashdot. You are the direct beneficiaries of thousands of years of intellectual development and you are throwing it away for what?
Yep....they can learn to shop and cook, it isn't rocket surgery!!
Hell, I remember one late night in grad school. I had gone shopping and as usual hit the marked down meat section, etc.
That might a friend came over late with a pizza, and I was snacking on veal medallions with a champagne cream sauce, and I guarantee I spent MUCH less than he did on the pizza, especially considering I got multiple meals off mine and he got one, maybe 2 best with his.
It isn't hard to learn to cook, and I'd scour the weekly grocery ads for what's on sale, and check the mark down counters and carts, and basically let THAT drive what I cooked and ate.
This kind of thing keeps meals from getting boring and keeps costs down.
I was working part time at the time too.
I make a healthy living now...but I still largely shop that way, I see what's on sale at the various grocery stores around me, I use that to plan my menus and on the weekend I shop and hit those stores for the best deals, I cook on the weekends, and eat leftovers for most of the week...and they're good and healthy.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Yes there are plenty of dumb degrees and people keep studying them. This is a major problem.
Welders can make 100k a year. The majority do not. The highest paying gigs are usually seasonal or temp gigs.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.