Where do students find the money?

            By Leslie Keeping

 

            We’ve all heard it in news stories, heard the complaints from students and experienced first hand what it’s like to be a so-called “starving student.” Living paycheque-to-paycheque, eating more than an unhealthy amount of pasta, and working the late-night shifts just to make ends meet. 

            Now a days, however, it’s been occurring to me that the starving student is a dying breed.  Though tuition costs are higher than ever, there seems to be a suspicious amount of spending going on within the early 20s age group. 

            Personally, I have a ratty pair of sneakers I’ve had for three years from Walmart, I shop at Value Village, I sew my own clothes when I can, I usually get my meals in the form of a coffee cup, my paycheques barely cover rent and groceries for the month and I use student loans. 

            But I feel like I missed a meeting at some point since the students around me don’t seem to be doing too badly.  New clothes over the weekends, cellphones (I do not how anyone can afford cellphone bills) laptops, ipods and a different pair of boots to go with each new outfit. 

            For me, it begs the question: where do students find the money?

            Statistics Canada found in a study back in 2001-2002 that of post-secondary students enrolled in the  more expensive programs (over $5,000) 85 per cent funded their tuition with personal savings,  though the savings usually won’t be enough to cover the entirety of the fees.

            Surprisingly, only 26 per cent of all post-secondary students rely on student loans for their tuition and not-so-surprisingly 90 per cent of students rely on several sources for their money.  Scholarships, part-time jobs and family funding are just a few.

It still sounds to me that unless students have some sort of inheritence or are enrolled in very cheap programs that it still should be a bit of a struggle to pay the bills each month. I suspect high-paying entry-level work such as call centres may be the reason for this, but that still doesn’t explain it for those of us who can’t make the commute to the industrial park.

             I might be wrong about all this, perhaps the new clothes and boots are old ones dug out from the closet.  The ipods, cellphones and laptops could be gifts.  But when people my age cringe at me when I say I shop at Value Village, or they do a double take when I say I don’t have a cellphone, it makes me think otherwise.

            I say letss stick to the cheap status symbols like ripped jeans and dollar store headphones connected to the no-name mp3 players our mom got us thinking it was an ipod. Choke down our pasta and drink coffee to surpress our appetites until we get our paycheques and can afford real food. 

There used to be an honour to the humble life of a poor student, and I say we should re-capture it.  Or at least, you well-off students should share your money secrets with the rest of us.