> In either case, students will still be expected to contribute toward their own educational expenses from summer income, savings and part-time work during the school year. Students are expected to contribute at least $5,000 per year from these sources but are not expected to borrow to make the contribution.
Agreed. Student earnings requirements aren't much of a problem for CS/engineering students (who can get paid summer jobs related to their field), but they are difficult for students trying to get into industries where unpaid internships are effectively a requirement. You would think Stanford would have made a change to this as well.
I'm a current Stanford undergrad. Most Stanford kids are able to pay for their "student contribution" by getting on campus work-study jobs (like in the Library or career development center), working as dorm staff in the underclassmen dorms, or working as paid researchers in professors' labs.
I've had on-campus jobs throughout college, and making $5000 from those jobs alone would require working somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 hours a week. Certainly possible (and many do it), but at that point it starts to have a pretty noticeable affect on your schoolwork and personal life.
What? $5000 a year is a straightforward, achievable contribution, especially with work-study jobs. When I was an undergrad at an ivy league school I made significantly more than that working at the dining hall during the year and the course review guide in the summer, and this was in the mid 90s.
15 weeks / semester * 2 semesters = 30 weeks.
$5000 / 30 weeks = $166 / week. At $8 an hour, that's 20 hours a week; at $10 an hour it's 16 hours. (Ignoring taxes, which are low but still push the hours needed higher.)
This is not accounting for summer jobs, but my original point was that having the student contribution at that level will make some students take a paying but dead-end summer job over an unpaid internship or other opportunity that would benefit them more in the long run. (Another reason unpaid internships are questionable ethically...)
> In either case, students will still be expected to contribute toward their own educational expenses from summer income, savings and part-time work during the school year. Students are expected to contribute at least $5,000 per year from these sources but are not expected to borrow to make the contribution.