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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 27, 1984)
oesut mailt ure said. H Monday, August 27, 1984/The Battalion/Page 11F al Jobs help pay for tuition until thesij f m m m ;r's offer ik tional20p(i By KAREN GILES ■ Reporter ^ stores ail Some of the best things in life are- I uesdaj i|f ree b u t unfortunately college isn’t s a *d. one of them. Blhe cost of a college education buying boolM s never been inexpensive, but in emesteteic t H e eighties it ranks as a major in- policy. Ifiti vestment, especially if the student is pin and iii sell-supported. and if st(*||‘The whole emphasis today has dents getjLhilted from student aid to personal ist pricel)|ilff|iaiice,” said Robert Leider, author o? Don’t Miss Out: The Ambitious Student’s Guide to Scholarships and Loans. “Need is an unfortunate term. Many people think it means meedy,’ but it is a better term and ;manv middle-class people are eligib le. BOver the years, many students k Store ii I lave supported themselves while in iId editionsiBllege. They try to get the most ■leage out of their resources and w to improve their chances of get- itinuedMi big any extra outside help they may ents sell tliti Ld. "saidCany I in the fall of 1954, G erry McGo- vertising rs fan enrolled at Texas A&M, joined ) use link jj e Corps of Cadets and began !• Iking for a job because his parents ave salesl| we ie unable to support him. lure studeitB McGowan began working his afs, RotkiBeshman year as a lab assistant in om a box In ' 5 percent t iversity uch items i back pads lair elpf 3sh be made, ng too :h as doit t is hard f( aires self-di r the semin if Student! Be physics department for 75 cents an hour, and he received 90 cents a da\ ($27 a month) since he was in Rother's iB e Corps. That doesn’t sound like WoodstouBjch, but at the time his tuition pay- larveyRoalBjnt, including room, board and lar idry, was $227 for the first se tter and seven dollars less in the ing, since he’d already paid for yearbook and student activity Be ■McGowan said the movie theater ■ campus, Guion Hall (where Rud- Hr Tower now stands), charged 25 mt, she smBus per show, and a longneck beer tp coverall at I d Hardliker’s was also a quarter. ;o open aArps trips were pretty cheap w hen ount. |(| guys would “pool” together for satlhesantgasoline at 19 cents a gallon and one 1 hintsonaKitel room at $14 a night. McGowan ing bargamplsn worked for a photographer who BkbMck and white pictures of each oar wiUmai®utlit on Corps trips, after the Moth- :)sed monii er’s Day parade and Final Review fot Gilbert $(. McGowan made 50 cents on ev- ime, then* em sale. JHis senior year he graded papers for his mechanical engineering pro- Ksor, Mr. Crawford, for 75 cents I hour. “It doesn’t sound like much, but it got me through,” Mc- iGowan said. “I know that if I were in college today, I’d have to hold more jobs to support myself. One thing was comforting though. Mr. Craw- Iford told me that if I ever needed help, that his friend Mr. Loupot could arrange some sort of a loan for me. 1 never took him up on it, but I • Bow a lot of the guys did. Mr. fCrawford said that Loupot’s philoso phy was ‘no one will ever drop out of this school because of money.’” ■ Unfortunately, since 1954, tuition for a semester, including room, trd and laundry, has risen from $227 to about $1250, and longneck :rs have shot up from 25 cents, to out one dollar. Fueled by inflation and federal Btbacks, college costs for 1982-1983 ve increased on the average, about |1 percent since 1981-1982, and a eater increase is likely in 1983- 1)84 for many colleges. Despite these odds, there are [any ambitious college students whose desire to earn a degree moti vates them to work while getting an education. ■ After high school graduation, An drew Ybarra, now a student at !Southwest Texas State University, V r-!« I -ing y to A place you’ll want to come back to... 3600 South College Bryan 846-3306 tried living at home and working while attending a junior college. “I tried saving money while I was at ho me,” Ybarra said. “I waited tables, worked at a one hour photo lab and I was even a dog catcher for a while, but 1 just couldn’t seem to manage my money. I spent $4,000 from the fall of’82 to the summer of’83. I de cided I had to get away, so I began saving my money in November, and by January I had saved $1,000 to be gin the spring session.” Ybarra is majoring in criminal jus tice and working for Humpty Dumpty Deliveries Inc.. He delivers balloons, and sings a song to his vic tim. “I try my hardest to embarrass the person more than I am,” Ybarra said. He said this is hard to do since most people pay him extra to wear one of the costumes, which include Big Bird, a gorrilla, a clown and Tar- zan. He said he’s pretty unconvinc ing as Tarzan, but when he’s in a crowded restaurant he likes to use lines like, “You’re the First woman I’ve ever seen without a lot of body hair.” He says he juggles balls, “which are safer than chain saws and flashier than knives”, and is always looking around for odd jobs to do. Ybarra is receiving financial aid from the university, and says this covers most of his bills, but little is left for recreation. Many Texas A&M students are in dependently financing their own ed ucations. Kathi Vecchio, head resident ad visor of Krueger Hall, and Ken Rus sell, head resident of Dunn Hall, are planning to be married in Decem ber. They both earn $400 a month, including a free room in the dorm, but next spring they will both be Russells and Ken will already be a daddy, “dorm daddy” that is. “That’s what the girls call the husband of the head R.A.,” Russell said. The couple will live in the head resident’s apart ment in Clements dorm, and while Kathi resumes her job as head resi dent, Ken is hoping for an assistantship in finance research or a teaching assistant job, while he works on his master’s degree. Ashley Girling is putting himself through school by selling insurance door to door, but says this isn’t enough to cover every bill, so he spends his summers working as a “roustabout” (a gopher and mainte nance aid) on an oil production field. Girling said this job has helped him learn more about his major, pe troleum engineering, while he makes a pretty good living. On a lighter side, Jerry Ponzio, manager of Teasers, a night club in College Station, likes to brag about a contestant named Angie who consis tently entered the legs constest at his club on Tuesday nights and rarely lost. “After she picked up the $200 purse here, she’d go to the Roxz on Wednesday and win their legs con stest,” Ponzio said. “Thursday she’d win at the Dallas club and Saturday she’d be back here for the wet t-shirt contest, which she’d also win. Angie made almost $1,000 a week and would only show up in time for the contest, then leave right after it was over.” Ponzio said Angie hasn’t been back, since she graduated from Texas A&M last spring. Two other ambitious students. Bob Rhoads and Ralph Troup, are working at a construction site this summer, laying plywood. Rhoads said they are paid about $100 each per building, and are averaging one building a day. They’re also doing odd jobs lor another contractor on the side for $6 an hour. They’re sav-~ epart- = ing their money to pay for their schooling, and Troup will continue with his previous job In the fall at the Petal Patch. “People complain that they can’t find a job, but they’re out there,” Troup said. “It may not be what you want to do, but sometimes if you just take what you can get, it may be a connection for a better job later.” Troup said he’s also receiving a long-term loan that is helping him out. He said he’s grateful that he has the loan, but he doesn’t like to think about having a debt hang over his head. “I don’t think many students at A&M realize that they really do have to pay back a loan, and I don’t think many students are aware of the op portunities that are available to them at the financial aid department,” Troup said. This past year 2,400 Texas A&M students have filed for financial aid. “The vast majority of the students don’t come until they really feel the need,” Lynda Gilbert, financial aid advisor said. “Approximately one- third of these students are indepen dent, and almost all of these inde pendent students are on a long-term loans, since they have no way of pay ing it back while they’re still en rolled.” Gilbert said approximately one- half of the students at Texas A&M are receiving some form of financial aid, including scholarships and em ployment, and that about 6,000 stu dents have found employment through the financial aid df ment this past year. “The most common way to reduce the cost of college is through finan cial aid which can be obtained in the form of scholarships and loans,” according to Karen Hegener, author of After Scholarships, What?. He gener said there are seventeen ways to reduce college costs, which can be used in conjunction with many of the other programs. These include: merit-based, need-based and athletic scholarships, short and long-term loans, part-time campus jobs, work- study programs, early and deferred entrance, part-time and three-year degrees, summer session credit, the external degree and co-op pro grams, off-campus residence, the guaranteed tuition plan and the ROTC. Cliff Chatham, a member of the Texas A&M track team, received fi nancial aid through a partial schol arship. Chatham said this covered his tuition and books (which are “borrowed” from Loupot’s bookstore) and left him with about $700 for rent. Chatham said he also received money after he had com pleted his four years of eligibility on the team, from an extended athletic scholarship. “This helps athletes who haven’t finished college within four years and still need financial aid,” Chatham said. While working only a few hours a week at United Bank, Kyle Rattan is drawing $2,500 per year from the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL), and an additional $500 a semester from a presidential scholarship. Rat tan said he couldn’t go to school without these aids, and says the best part is that he doesn’t have to begin paying for the GSL until six months after he leaves school. He must com plete payment withing 10 years. To qualify for federal programs such as the GSL, a family with an in come of $30,000 or more must take a test that determines their need. Colleges, on the other hand, have no standard definition of middle in- •Dellcious Hamburgers made to order •Ice Cold Beer including Z Imported Brands • •Country Atmosphere complete with pool and games. Bryan-College Station Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates, PA 1701 Briarcrest Dr. Suite 100 Bryan, Texas 77802 Linda S. Dutton, C.N.P. 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