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CAN IT REALLY BE TWO years since I wrote about sending my twins off to college? One is a chemistry major, midway through her junior year. Meanwhile, for her twin sister, the artist, there have been big changes in her college trajectory.
My initial criteria for college selections included published statistics on cost, likelihood of admission, timely graduation and low rates of loan default. I took this last stat as a reasonable proxy for post-college success.
My daughter the chemistry major is on track to graduate after four years. This past semester was her first as an organic chemistry lab assistant. She’s applying for internships in her field. If that doesn’t work out, she’ll take any other job.
Her sister, after three semesters in art school, came home without a degree. She’d become uncomfortable with the expense, not to mention the raw talent, Herculean effort and plain old good luck that would be essential to earning a living in the arts. She loved the big city and befriended amazing people. I’d paid tuition in full each semester, so she walked away debt-free.
I’ve told her from the first to avoid the sunk cost fallacy—seeing something to completion only because she’d already invested considerable effort. Rather, I encouraged her to treat each semester as a new decision. She could continue at art school, look for work, switch to community college, become a volunteer or try something else.
She returned home with “some college,” a category frequently found in job descriptions. A family friend suggested she volunteer at a school library. In our city, many elementary school libraries are open part of the day and staffed by volunteers.
To take on this role at a public school required fingerprinting for a criminal background check and screening for tuberculosis. The principal explained the library was open four days a week, and she could volunteer as little or as much as she liked.
My daughter showed up like clockwork, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., three days a week. The principal occasionally reminded her that she didn’t have to be there every day, but she just kept coming on time each day, each week. She dressed stylishly and professionally.
Working in a children’s library played to her love of books and her creative, artistic nature, as well as her organizational skills. She found out she got along well with school-age children. She researched educational requirements for professional librarians. Our local community college has a certificate in library science, a reasonable starting point, so she enrolled.
She’d started in the company of a 76-year-old library volunteer. When the older woman told the principal she’d be leaving at the end of the school year, the principal decided their school needed a library whose opening wasn’t dependent on volunteers. She submitted paperwork to use some of her limited discretionary money to create a paid five-days-a-week, three-hours-a-day library position. She encouraged my daughter to apply.
This part-time job pays marginally more than minimum wage. Still, the application was an arduous, multi-week task that included a second fingerprinting and criminal background check, another tuberculosis test, plus three letters of reference and a panel interview.
My daughter spent the last week of the school year asking teachers she knew from her library work to write letters of recommendation. One noted that if she were hired, she’d be at school for half of each day. Why not apply for a second part-time job, as a classroom aide, for the other half? There was an open position for that, too.
My daughter decided to apply for the aide position. This involved a second application form, a physical strength test and a second panel interview. With two job applications in play, it seemed likely she’d get at least one offer.
She was offered both positions. Part-time plus part-time meant a fulltime job with regular hours at a single site. The aide work has been hard, with on-the-job training and a steep learning curve, but she’s kept at it and it’s gotten easier.
She doesn’t yet earn enough to afford rent for her own apartment. I imagine she’ll eventually make more money, find roommates and move out. Meanwhile, she’s living at home, saving the bulk of her pay each month.
As a fulltime-equivalent employee, she qualifies for benefits. She gets sick pay, vacation days, and insurance for health, dental and vision. She’s also a member of the state teachers’ retirement system. If she works in this school or any public school in the state for five years, she can draw a pension someday. Even if she quits tomorrow, the money that the district has deposited into her retirement account has begun to compound, and she can leave it to grow for decades.
She’s also learned how to get hired. She attends meetings and trainings, opening paths for new friendships and jobs in related agencies. She imagines working at the same school for several years, while she earns a library science certificate and possibly, from there, transfer to our local state university to complete a bachelor’s degree in library science or education.
She faces no opportunity costs to attending college because she can take most classes at times that don’t interfere with her job. Her education trajectory is extremely cost-effective for me, too.
Maybe she’ll pivot to something else, but that doesn’t worry me. She’s got great mentors in her principal and the classroom teacher for whom she works as an aide. She gets plenty of on-the-job learning opportunities.
She talks with the young adults at school about where they live, how they found roommates and how they balance work with school. She’s earning and managing her own money. She still paints and draws, but as a hobby, not a vocation.
Meanwhile, her chemistry major sister is doing a lot of studying and considering graduate school. She’s hoping for a lab position somewhere when she completes her bachelor’s degree. She’s watching her sister manage fulltime work while going to school part-time. I can see her thinking through how she might do the same.
This leaves their brother, who is the new focal point of my worries. It’s his last year of high school, but he faces considerable credit deficits, having had little success with remote learning during the pandemic school closures. Summer school and credit recovery are one option.
He’s come up with something of a plan. When he turns 18, he’ll move closer to extended family in another state, where he’ll either finish high school or get a GED and a job, and then attend community college. He’s young, so his plans might change. I’m glad I’m not navigating the college application process with him this year, especially with the newly designed FAFSA form. I’m not sure where he’ll land, but I’ll provide financial support if it turns out he wants and needs it, just as I’ve assisted his sisters.
Here are five takeaways from my experiences so far:
Catherine Horiuchi is retired from the University of San Francisco’s School of Management, where she was an associate professor teaching graduate courses in public policy, public finance and government technology. Check out Catherine’s earlier articles.
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Our middle son always struggled in school, barely graduating HS after going to 4 different schools in 4 years, the last one being a boarding school that cost us $40,000. It was money well spent because, although he hated it, it got him over the line and he graduated. But then after briefly trying college, he ended up working a series of entry level jobs, never staying long enough to advance. After some serious health setbacks (open heart surgery at age 24) and watching both his brothers get Masters Degrees, he finally developed the motivation and maturity to go back to school. After some remedial college courses he was accepted into an accelerated RN program at a community college where he thrived, graduating at the top of his class. Today is this ” late bloomers” 32nd birthday. He is now working as a dialysis nurse with thoughts of becoming a Physicians Assistant.
Everybody’s path is different, some more circuitous than others, although Greg’s path definitely gave his mother and me a few extra gray hairs!😉