I wish I could upvote you more. The fact that kids can work in college seems to be beyond most people.
My wife worked part-time all through college and managed to get an engineering degree. I worked 25+ hours per week through most of my college and managed to get a CS/MIS degree. Sure we each had approx. 20k in student loans, but that is entirely manageable.
One thing about college - you get exposed to areas you never would on your own. As part of my education I was forced to take language and public speaking classes. These are areas I would not have explored on my own. But to be honest, they have been worth far more than any technology class I took.
I'd like to echo: THE BEST MONEY I EVER SPENT.
edit: Our degrees are in marketable fields. Spending a fortune for a degree in art history is not marketable, and is entirely foolish.
It's excellent that you managed to work and get an engineering degree.. but I'm not convinced this is something that can work on a large scale. Where did you live?
I knew a guy at UCSD who was trying to major in computer science while supporting himself. He was working about 30 hours a week in retail at a department store. San Diego is expensive, and just making ends meet can be a challenge for someone low on the pay scale, and he was trying to balance this with paying for tuition, books, a laptop, and so forth.
Now, add in the fact that he's trying to get good grades in data structures and algorithms, vector calc, physics, and a general education elective. He ended up dropping the data structures class.
Now, people drop that class for all kinds of reasons. But personally, I'd rather not see America's promising young minds struggling with a 30 hr a week retail job while taking a heavy course load of math, physics, and engineering. I've heard of students putting 20-30 hours a week into data structures alone. This can lead to 70+ hour weeks. It's character building, and some extraordinary people will succeed, but I think we need to recognize that this would knock many students with above average motivation, study habits, and intelligence out of the game.
Unfortunately, the answer for the "middle class" may be to target universities near home and stay with the parents. UCs are about 10K/yr now for in-state undergraduates. I think a student could swing that with moderate part time work and limited loans. This would come with its own kind of costs, though.
It's excellent that you managed to work and get an engineering degree.. but I'm not convinced this is something that can work on a large scale. Where did you live?
Not just where, but also when. I hear the worked-through-college story a lot, but only from people who graduated some time ago (in OP's case, 13 years ago). Tuition has been rising much faster than wages.
I graduated college in 2008, in state, but was able to work 15-20 hours a week while getting my CS degree and paid for all my living expenses and books. I entered the job market as the economy was crashing. Financial feasibility of the school should be a bigger topic among students and school.
I'll also echo the notion that it was money well spent though. I come from a blue-collar background and 2 years out of school I'm making more money than my parents ever did (almost double) just as a salaried programmer, although I have about $500/mo in loans, even after paying them my income and standard of living is higher.
But next time I read the 5000th article on the NYT about poor Johnny that can't find a job because he only has a degree in art history, yet has $200k in student loans, I'm going to lose it.
I remember also having read that while liberal arts are bad paid at the beginning of their career and strugle to find a first job that jumpstart their career, they mostly level (and in many cases overachieve) the difference with engineers after 20 years.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/02/college-degree-pay-careers-...
Studies and articles focus on just-out-of-college salary, but that's not the whole story...
Does that actually happen much (the lack of jobs, not the NYT articles)? Unemployment is low among people with college degrees of any kind--- the big rises in unemployment we've seen lately are mainly among non-degree-holding former blue-collar workers who've been unable to find new work as factories have closed. The people I know with art and art-history degrees seem to have no problem finding work with design and advertising firms, among other things.
Now, they aren't all doing their first choice or what their degree exactly is about, but that's also true of many technical people. Probably the worst group for that is people with only a B.S. in a basic science--- nobody I know with just a B.S. in physics, bio, or chemistry has been able to get a job they're particularly happy with in science. Some have gone back to grad school, and others have treated it as just an "I'm smart" piece of paper to get them in the door to other, not-very-related careers. So I don't actually see a huge difference between an art-history and a biology degree from the practicality perspective (the average starting salaries are comparable, too).
Then here's something different for you from the LAT: a guy with an MBA, a law degree, has Wall St experience, six figures in debt and hasn't found a job in years.
Oh, come on! Not everything has to be pragmaticized (is that even a word?) to the n'th degree.
It's one thing to get an Art History degree if that truly is what you're interested in. It's quite another to assume that it has to be expensive.
Sure, someone spending $200k like the poster below mentions for an Art degree is probably not showing good judgement. OTOH, someone else who lives with parents during college, works part time in a printshop and gets the same degree owing minimal student loans is in an arguably better position both financially and in terms of real-world experience.
I'd much rather hire someone with an Art History degree and a passion for the subject than someone else who cruised through CS coursework while having no interest in it beyond its moneymaking potential.
My wife worked part-time all through college and managed to get an engineering degree. I worked 25+ hours per week through most of my college and managed to get a CS/MIS degree. Sure we each had approx. 20k in student loans, but that is entirely manageable.
One thing about college - you get exposed to areas you never would on your own. As part of my education I was forced to take language and public speaking classes. These are areas I would not have explored on my own. But to be honest, they have been worth far more than any technology class I took.
I'd like to echo: THE BEST MONEY I EVER SPENT.
edit: Our degrees are in marketable fields. Spending a fortune for a degree in art history is not marketable, and is entirely foolish.