Students working while in college Essay Example for Free

Students working while in college Essay Back in 70’s and 80’s, going to college and getting a degree did not seem much of a necessary thing to do. Students, who used to have enough time, enough money or much interest in doing so, used to go to college. Other students, by the end of their high school used to start looking for jobs good enough to support them and any dependents, if they had, financially. Even till not very long ago, going to college was more of a privilege, not a necessity. However, with growing competition all around the world, and increasing globalization and the world becoming a global village with multicultural workforces and amalgamated employee bases, going to college is becoming more and more of a necessity with every passing day. In fact, it has already become inevitable for most of the students in most parts of the world to have a good college degree in addition to proper experience and a set of competitive skills and abilities, in order to get a good, reputable job that earns a good sum of money for one’s living respectably. This fact, created great financial problems for the not-so-rich students, who could not afford the college education required to get them a good job. This might even have led to disparity among the population since the poor students who could not afford good college education would not have got good jobs either and would always have remained poor. This would have gone on and on. Eventually, these students either needed financial aid or any other means to generate money to pay the college fee and earn a degree. Many solutions were figured out. One way out are financial aids and scholarships. Another way to finance college education is to work while one studies at college earning the money for tuition along side Financial Aid and Scholarships One alternative to working while studying at college is to avail financial aids and scholarships. Financial aids are special loans provided to students who cannot afford college education to enable them to complete their studies and then pay the loan back slowly and gradually either during the course of their studies or later on when they have finished their educational life and start working. As far as scholarships are concerned, they are the special kind of the financial aid which does not need to be paid back. These scholarships can be provided under special programs by the government, NGO’s, any other private body or even the college/university itself. They might either be fully paid or partially paid (by a fixed percent). The Scholarships can either be merit based (when a student is exceptionally good at studies, that his education expenses are exempted or paid; in this case, the student should not be necessarily needy) or need based (when the student is good enough but cannot finance his education so his education fee needs to be exempted or paid). (Petersons, 2003) However, this is not always the case and is not applicable practically everywhere for many a reason. As far as financial aids are concerned, the problem with them is that they have to be paid back sooner or later, one way or the other. So, if other options are available, why take them in the first place? And the scholarships are obviously in a limited number. More over, not everyone can get a scholarship. For example, a student might be needy and interested in studying at college at the same time, but he might not be a good student after all, and thus, the scholarship providing bodies would not want to risk their money after someone who might not even graduate. (Petersons, 2003). More over, these scholarships might not cover the accommodation and other expenses of the students who might even be from other countries for sake of education. These and related expenses need to be paid for by the student one way or the other. These and many other financial problems of the students can be solved by working while studying at the college. This can help the student earn enough money to pay for the college tuition fee as well as other expenses like accommodation, everyday expenses like transportation and all. (Orszag, Whitemore, 2001) Working While in College. During the last two decades, the number of students working (part time or full time) while going to college has increased at an incredibly fast rate. The prime reason for such a behavior, as mentioned above is the increasing demand of college degrees. In addition to this, awareness among the students and increased inclination towards studies has played a major role as well. Also, with inflation increasing at a dramatic rate all around the world, most parent who could afford higher education for their children do not appear to do so any more and thus they expect their children to finance their education, fully or partly, by themselves. More over, not only the working students’ ratio has increased, but the number of students working full time during their full time student life has increased drastically as well. Working students can be roughly categorized as the full time students who are working (full time or part time) to finance their living and education, that is the students who see themselves first as students and then as employees, and the students who work full time and are studying side by side with their work as part time students, that is the students who see themselves first as employees and then as students.