This 1978 statistic is only marginally true. Yeah, you could cover tuition with a minimum-wage job. But there are a lot of expenses involved in going to college in addition to tuition.
You could actually attend the university of your choice only if you A) lived at home with your parents, B) went to a college in your state and paid resident tuition, and C) had enough extra money to buy books, bus fare to get to school, and cover any other incidental expenditures, D) brought your lunch from home, and E) did absolutely nothing else that required any money whatsoever. In other words, you needed to be completely dependent on your parents for everything, even though you're an adult of legal voting age.
For example, if you worked for minimum wage ($2.65/hour) for 40 hours a week, for three months, you would earn about $1300. That would have covered three quarters at the University of Minnesota, and maybe your books. But you wouldn't have enough money to get to school, or eat.
I was in college in 1978, and I and everyone I knew either had their parents paying their tuition, or we worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer, and we lived at home with our parents (I was able to move into an apartment with a friend during my senior year -- I got paid almost double minimum wage).
But if your choice of public university was UCLA and you were from Minnesota, you would have to pay non-resident tuition, as well as room and board. A summer minimum wage job wouldn't begin to cover that.
I don't know what it's like at other schools, but in the 1970s a majority of students at the University of Minnesota commuted: it was the biggest commuter school in the country. Now it's totally different; 91% of first-year students live in dorms, and the campus is surrounded by expensive condos built for students whose parents buy their units as an "investment."
This is a big reason why the "cost of college" has gone up so much. We don't go to college the way we used to. Students want the full "campus experience" and get away from their parents' prying eyes.
Today's students should get the same deal that I got when I went to college: tuition should be low enough, and the minimum wage should be high enough, so that you can work part-time during the school year, live at home and go to the state university where you live. Scholarships should be available for students who don't live close enough.
Working 20 hours a week is about 1,000 hours a year. Annual resident tuition and fees at public universities vary widely, but it looks like $8,000 to $12,000 is typical. Including taxes on those wages and all your other expenses for going to college, even while living at home, the minimum wage would need to be about $15/hour.
So, do we want to raise taxes to subsidize colleges so they can lower tuition, or raise the minimum wage so college students can afford it? Raising the minimum wage seems the obvious choice, since it will help eliminate the need to subsidize people who work at Walmart whose pay is so low they need foodstamps.
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This 1978 statistic is only marginally true. Yeah, you could cover tuition with a minimum-wage job. But there are a lot of expenses involved in going to college in addition to tuition.
You could actually attend the university of your choice only if you A) lived at home with your parents, B) went to a college in your state and paid resident tuition, and C) had enough extra money to buy books, bus fare to get to school, and cover any other incidental expenditures, D) brought your lunch from home, and E) did absolutely nothing else that required any money whatsoever. In other words, you needed to be completely dependent on your parents for everything, even though you're an adult of legal voting age.
For example, if you worked for minimum wage ($2.65/hour) for 40 hours a week, for three months, you would earn about $1300. That would have covered three quarters at the University of Minnesota, and maybe your books. But you wouldn't have enough money to get to school, or eat.
I was in college in 1978, and I and everyone I knew either had their parents paying their tuition, or we worked part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer, and we lived at home with our parents (I was able to move into an apartment with a friend during my senior year -- I got paid almost double minimum wage).
But if your choice of public university was UCLA and you were from Minnesota, you would have to pay non-resident tuition, as well as room and board. A summer minimum wage job wouldn't begin to cover that.
I don't know what it's like at other schools, but in the 1970s a majority of students at the University of Minnesota commuted: it was the biggest commuter school in the country. Now it's totally different; 91% of first-year students live in dorms, and the campus is surrounded by expensive condos built for students whose parents buy their units as an "investment."
This is a big reason why the "cost of college" has gone up so much. We don't go to college the way we used to. Students want the full "campus experience" and get away from their parents' prying eyes.
Today's students should get the same deal that I got when I went to college: tuition should be low enough, and the minimum wage should be high enough, so that you can work part-time during the school year, live at home and go to the state university where you live. Scholarships should be available for students who don't live close enough.
Working 20 hours a week is about 1,000 hours a year. Annual resident tuition and fees at public universities vary widely, but it looks like $8,000 to $12,000 is typical. Including taxes on those wages and all your other expenses for going to college, even while living at home, the minimum wage would need to be about $15/hour.
So, do we want to raise taxes to subsidize colleges so they can lower tuition, or raise the minimum wage so college students can afford it? Raising the minimum wage seems the obvious choice, since it will help eliminate the need to subsidize people who work at Walmart whose pay is so low they need foodstamps.
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