All Worked Up

"Among the most surprising findings in the survey, Goldrick-Rab said, 'Is that homeless college students devote as much time to the classroom and to studying as do college students who are not homeless. However, they also work more, they commute more, spend more time taking care of other people and they sleep less.'"

"That is why she is urging higher education institutions to double down on providing services to help financially strapped students graduate. 'Because these people have clearly exhibited a resilience that almost any employer would benefit from.'"

Hunger And Homelessness Are Widespread Among College Students, Study Finds More than a third of them don't have enough to eat and a similar number lack stable housing, according to a survey published Tuesday by researchers at Temple University and the Wisconsin HOPE Lab.

All Worked Up team member Erika Carlos on student Dreamers in today's Santa Barbara Independent:

Santa Barbara Dreamers Come of Age Having Grown Up In A Supportive Political Climate, They Now Fight To Maintain Federal Protections.

Our first team publication Just came out in the LA Review of Books blog! Check it out:

Getting to Graduation - BLARB Getting to Graduation

We wrote an essay for the LA Review of Books Blog on the different experiences students have getting to graduation based on their ethnic, racial, and economic backgrounds. Thank you to all the student workers who have been willing to sit down for an interview with us!

Getting to Graduation - BLARB Getting to Graduation

"The answer to that question isn't psychology. It's math. A summer job just doesn't have the purchasing power it used to, especially when you compare it with the cost of college."

Why Summer Jobs Don't Pay The minimum wage is flat, college tuition is up and students are broke: Summer jobs just don't have the purchasing power they used to, especially when you look at the cost of college.

"When we encounter the university as an unfinished institution and when we might “dare to speak” what we want from it, to call its bluffs, to mock rather than mimic its “requirements of convention.” I hope to show that partnering with undergraduate students in critical university studies research offers an opportunity to multiply these moments of possibility."

Our faculty mentor, Heather Steffen, was recently published on Radical Teacher! Check out her neat article about the AWU project and collaboration: "Inventing Our University: Student-Faculty Collaboration in Critical University Studies"

radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu

Just ended our workshop presentation about "Enacting Solidarity with Student Workers & Students In Debt" - thanks to everyone who made it and helped make it a success!

(From the article) Right now about 44 million borrowers in the United States hold about $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loans. The scale of outstanding student loans and an increasing share of borrow­ers who fail to repay have made many Americans aware that student debt is a challenge for society and for individual borrowers. Yet despite the fact that women represented 56 percent of those enrolled in American colleges and universities in fall 2016, many people do not think of student debt as a women’s issue. This report reveals that women also take on larger student loans than do men. And because of the gender pay gap, they have less disposable income with which to repay their loans after graduation, requiring more time to pay back their student debt than do men. As a result, women hold nearly two-thirds of the outstanding student debt in the United States — more than $800 billion. (H/t Malea)

Women’s Student Debt Crisis in the United States Student loan debt is now a $1.3-trillion problem burdening 44 million borrowers. Experts are talking about the effects of student debt on the economy, but they aren’t talking about its disproportionate effects on women. Read more »

“I’m driving to pay off my student debts. I had to start college late because my father had a stroke shortly after I graduated high school. He couldn’t afford to stop working. So I worked in a fried chicken restaurant seven days a week while he recovered. When he first came home from the hospital, I carried him down the stairs. He had tears in his eyes. My father emigrated from Pakistan in the eighties. He worked hard so that I could have a better life. In that moment, I think he saw that I’d turned into the son that he’d always hoped for.”

“I’m driving to pay off my student debts. I had to start college late because my father had a stroke shortly after I graduated high school. He couldn’t afford to stop working. So I worked in a fried chicken restaurant seven days a week while he recovered. When he first came home from the hospital, I carried him down the stairs. He had tears in his eyes. My father emigrated from Pakistan in the eighties. He worked hard so that I could have a better life. In that moment, I think he saw that I’d turned into the son that he’d always hoped for.”

"while part-time and minimum wage jobs actually paid more decades ago than they do now, the cost of college tuition has risen significantly more than the rate of inflation."

This Viral Meme Exposes What People Still Don't Get About Student Loan Debt You could use this when you talk to your parents about student loans.

In the UCSB Current today - the Raab Writing Fellows Program and a spotlight on the All Worked Up Project!

Voices Carry UCSB Raab Writing Fellows Program inspires students to take an in-depth look at a wide range of issues