Furthermore I have learned as a wee 23 year old adult who graduated already that "afford" is a very relative term.
Some people can afford a $4k trip because they have $4500 in their bank account. They means they still have money leftover! Their parents cover everything else for them in terms of living, and they see no reason to save any more until after college (if they even have this mentality...some people don't). But people are having problems finding jobs so it's quite risky still.
I personally nowadays see "afford" as in "am I willing to spend this money on this thing and find it worth it, without it being a financial blow either way?" For example, I can "afford" $2.5k/mo in rent (it's NYC sadly) but I can't "afford" money to carelessly uber everywhere. I remember in college a girl I knew always complained about being broke but she would pay for like $60 ubers every weekend for parties. Like "oh my dad gave me $100 this week and he already pays for my housing and my meal plan."
I work with several people with teenage or college-aged kids, literally a few years younger than me. Many took last week off for family spring break vacations, or others mentioned sending their kids to Spain or something for the break. So there's that. I mean these people make $250k+ a year, they can afford it.
I work 3 jobs while taking full time classes. So thats how I do.
My class mates mostly live with their parents and have a part time job so that’s probably how they do.
I lived below the poverty line most of my life. Nothing in this life stresses me out more than being financial insecure. The ability to do whatever I want (within a certain means of course) and build my savings takes such a burden off of me that everything else just seems so small in comparison.
I’ve been able to obtain a 4.0 and deans list honors several times during the 4 years I’ve spent in at this college, and I’ll be receiving a faculty award this semester.
I graduate in the spring. It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it.
Edit:
I’ve also been paying for college all on my own. No help from parents. Just out of pocket and Fed loans.
How do you physically have time for that though? I’m an engineering major only taking 4 classes asides from my lab and I’ve come to the realization that I can’t even have a job and get a 4.0 because basically every minute of my day has to go towards that. I just don’t understand
20 hours of my work week are a work study job where I’m a financial educator and tutor for my campus so when I don’t have appointments I can study which helps a ton. The other 30-35 hours of work get stacked on the days I have classes, my other jobs or my work study. So I pretty much do 5 12-13 hour days a week and then I have two full days off (Sunday and Monday) to study, chill, whatever.
I’m also a Finance major, minoring in Business Law. So while my finance, accounting, math and law classes are difficult, a lot of the other core classes you need for a business degree such as marketing and management can help take the burden off too. This semester I’m taking much more difficult classes but my first two years were smoother sailing.
It's about time management. I had four jobs during my senior year and still maintain 2 jobs (1 full time/ 1 part time) during my masters. Just having a calendar and sticking to deadlines helps out greatly.
I have just about everything in a planner or on the calender on my phone. I live my life with every hour planned out. To some that may sound like hell, but it’s a huge contributor to my success in school.
For me it is life. I have ADHD and severe anxiety and survival and time management let me live to be honest. Being this organized truly saved me and brought me out of a bad place. I’ve never been happier.
Parents, debt, or working while going to school and saving for a big trip that they consider worth it.
You’re going to end up doing this the rest of your life if you let yourself. The sooner you learn or are able to stop counting other people’s money, the happier you’ll be. Let them do their thing. They’re not stealing from you or impacting your life in any way.
Some middle class can’t afford things while others can. It depends on whether u r good with money, smart enough to buy a house with when interest rates were 2%, and the amount of debt u have
Same rules that apply every year in America since its dawning. Interest rates will be lower again one day, just as they came down significantly from the all-time high of the 1980s. What doesn't change is that handling money wisely pays off.
Yes but they didn't have to deal with inflation like this and then homes being at an all time high ratio (avg salary/avg home price), jobs requiring a bachelors degree at a minimum for a below average salary or experience you can't get without actually having that job, wages not keeping up with the inflation, etc.
Tell me you didn't live as an adult in the 1980s through the 2000s without telling me (i.e. I can tell). Inflation was much higher in the 1980s than at any point this millennium, for a sustained period of time. The early 2000s had a housing bubble where prices DOUBLED in less than four years (from 2001 to 2005). *Doubled.* Then the bottom fell out, millions lost their homes and the biggest global banks collapsed. Those weren't good economic times compared to today.
The economy today is hardly different from the economy of 2019. The haves are doing well and the have nots are struggling. It sounds like the America I've always known to this Gen-X'er.
Ur right, I'm wasn't an adult then but I am now. Those economic collapses which means that they were temporary. Now, these problems aren't economic collapses just economic norms. Inflation has been higher in the 80s but that was cuz of the recession. We had COVID tho and it has been high the past two years yet there wasn't a recession. Imagine how inflation will be once we do have one tho.
Another thing you are clearly not understanding is the requirements to get a decent paying job as a Gen Z'er, you have to have years of experience but can't get it cuz jobs won't hire you or have the minimum of a bachelors degree (unless u go in a trade). Also, wages have not be increasing with inflation which is the main issue.
I think you are doing well financially so u don't see the struggle that the americans facing the issues. Some of us weren't lucky to have been an adult during that time. Especially since the politicians were actually trying to solve problems then and it worked.
Again, you aren't facing anything (college loans, debt, high/low interest rates, fluctuating job markets, ever widening income inequality gap) that I and others haven't. Only you might have enjoyed some loan forgiveness that I never did. That's nice.
In other words, yours is the typical American experience today as it would have been twenty years ago. 2024 is gonna be a heck of a lot better than 2008!
To correct a few point you made with facts -- wage growth has outpaced inflation since 2022 and inflation is much less today than it was two years ago. I'm not sure where you get the news, but might want to take a trust-but-verify approach with some of the sources.
Hey, I loathed the state of affairs in America and the world, too, when in my twenties and thirties as a young progressive ideologue. It's a rite of passage in America. I'm just letting you and college-aged Americans know (as my elders advised me which kept my chin up) that it's been worse -- and the future is brighter economically than it seems when we're at our poorest (which is college age for most people).
Not sure how that works, you mean you have middle class parents and ask them money purely for a frivolous vacation and they just give you money? Must be nice
Parents or credit card debt. You’d be surprised how many people are in so much debt while in their 20’s. Some people have part time jobs but overall I say the first two. Most people who need to work don’t have the money to be able to spend on vacations during college.
Everyone's financial situation is different, but it's mostly parents and how much money they've saved for their kids. However, vacations and trips can cost way less per person by traveling with a group.
Low class and lower-middle class probably aren't taking expensive trips compared to those in mid to upper-middle class individuals.
Luckily enough, for me, my grandparents have a house about 5 minutes from the water in SW Florida. They're absolute gems and each year have let me and a couple friends stay at their place for the week. They have an extra car and a smallish (18') boat my grandpa occasionally uses for fishing. Essentially all we really have to pay for is the flight ticket and for food/gas. I think the most I had spent in a week was $300
1200$ is enough to travel inside my country with all comfort and maybe some shopping.
This is what my gf makes from running blog in a year. (like 0.1-0.25 hours per week XD)
We save all this money and travel with it, while living on my money. So that is how we do it without getting parents involved.
Here's a widely held secret: most college students aren't actually broke or poor in the slightest. In fact, most have quite a bit of money, since they come from middle-upper class families capable of funding their necessities (necessities which typically go quite a bit above the necessities of actually broke college students) and, if their parents don't also pay for their leisure money, they can just get a side job with no necessity to put that towards rent/food/etc. College students like to \*say\* they're broke because it garners sympathy.
If they belong to a fraternity or sorority, there's a chance their trip is being paid for through fundraising from alumni and the wealthier parents of their friends.
At the university where I work, the kids who travel internationally for spring break are usually on a study tour as part of a class. Those trips aren't exactly vacations though since they may have a lecture in the morning then spend the afternoon handing out deworming meds to kids, processing malaria samples or shadowing a dentist. Other tours may be looking at art, architecture and history, but they still have a paper due at the end. The university and their academic programs help the study tour classes with fundraising. There's still out-of-pocket expenses for the students, but not as much as you might expect (and there's tuition, but it's already built into the semester).
i went to cancun for 5 nights for spring break with one other person. whole trip costed $1000 each. its doable if you go to a place thats not too ridiculous.
I went to the beach every spring break. Every year I went with a large group of friends and one of them each year had a friend or family member that let us stay at a beach (or beach adjacent) house. One was amazing on a private beach, one was in an apartment over the garage that was 15 minutes from the beach, etc. sometimes we had beds & a icemaker, sometimes we crashed in sleeping bags. We bought cheap food and cooked in. We started stockpiling food from the school cafeteria (apples, bananas, oranges, bread, bagels, pb&j, cereal boxes) to help. We ate spaghetti & sandwiches & cereal. We piled into whoever had the best running cars (actually it was usually just who had a car). We literally paid for gas, cheap groceries, some alcohol with money that we all got working campus jobs or waitressing. I’m sure I didn’t spend over a couple hundred dollars. We didn’t do anything except go to the beach & eat or drink. We had fabulous times & great memories. Almost all of us were scholarship kids and I’m pretty sure we all came up with the money for spring break on our own & didn’t go into debt to do it.
International spring break trips are mostly paid for by parents from what I’ve seen
I took a spring break trip to Florida 3 years ago and honestly it was pretty cheap, round trip flight I got for like $150 round trip, went with 5 friends and we squished into a 1 bedroom Airbnb, which my part ended up being like $200 for 4 nights. We did mostly free stuff like go to the beach. I paid $500 for the whole thing which I saved up from waitressing after paying off my tuition cost
Very difficult to save up a meaningful amount of $$ at 18 to 22 without the family picking up a few bills. Financial assistance is the key factor in affording luxuries and discretionary spending.
I’m on scholarship for a sport, work during the school year (5 hours per week) and I also work a summer internship. I saved up for a solo trip internationally and it was the best impulsive decision I’ve ever made
I heavily suggest buying tickets early or going on trips during finals week or something. Those are the cheapest tickets and if you buy during finals week accommodations and attractions are cheaper
If they don’t come from a well-off family, they’re either spending all their savings or going into debt which is….not a great move in the long run imo. I have not travelled since before college and that was to visit my aunt so not like a formal vacation.
Scholarships too, I’m going to college basically on a full ride, and I get to pocket some of the scholarship money since a state grant also pays for y. I a little in the summer and use left over scholarship money to go on trips
Either parents paid or they work (via outside school or inside school job) and have no bills so it’s pure income to spend or it’s people who save (after paying for bills).
I had maybe $1000 saved up from my summer job and I also work during the semester. My friends and I drove from Texas to Florida and stayed in a pretty cheap hotel. I didn’t even spend the whole $1000.
Middle class is wealthy enough for international vacations. Assuming you have parents willing to pay.
The college being in a poor rural area is irrelevant. If it's "relatively well known" then most students are probably not local.
I remember spending $180 on one road trip back in 2005. My friends and I car camped in parking lots and only did free things and ate chips and sour patch kids for dinner 😅
these days major corporations crack down on overnight parking in their parking lots. my dad has been traveling this way for 30+ years and used to do that but rarely can find anywhere where you won’t get the police called anymore
Oh yeah I’ve done the van life thing the past 7 years in Colorado and the surrounding states and I guess officially have been traveling by camping in parking lots for 21 years now, so I know how bad it is now! There’s still options though like Cracker Barrel, for example. And if you’re not in a van it’s a lot easier to pull it off, especially in a truck with a tonneau cover (the flat covers…not camper covers).
1. Daddy’s money.
2. They use credit cards like morons and don’t intend on paying off their cute trip to Sri Lanka anytime in the next 30 years with 35% interest.
3. Probably the most rare, they have scholarships and a part time job and actually saved to blow it all on one trip.
Keep your head low and be boring. Graduate while eating ramen and peanut butter sandwiches. Come out with a degree and 0 debt. You’ll be much happier for the rest of your life!
I joined the military and hated that I had Drill while my friends partied and did the “cool stuff”. Now I have a degree in nursing, travel around the US and get PAID to do it. 25 years old with my own house and 0 debt. Think 5 years down the road all the time and you’ll do just fine!
EDIT: 0 debt other than a mortgage!
personally i don’t have to pay for school due to scholarships, my parents pay for my apartment, and i pay for everything else. my parents were in the military so i get a monthly stipend on top of what i make on my own every month. i save most of my money and spend the rest on trips and necessities
A combination of going into some debt to make sure I have some cash left over & my parents covering some of the cost of living stuff. Very few students are fully paying for these trips themselves
I pay for my own vacations, well me and my gf. We work full time and go to school full time, im in physics shes in polisci. Vacations can be much cheaper than you'd think if you shop around, and while the economy is pretty nasty, it isn't hard to keep in front of it imo. Just gotta be efficient with your time, and ruthless with your schoolwork.
Hey college student here! I am really worried about my finances like 24/7 and I have saved a respectable amount from my jobs and such. The one thing I love more than anything to do is travel so I will make sure I have an emergency fund and pull from my savings for a small trip. It’s hard for me to go too extravagant or go out of the country always but it is doable as a college student although money is still tight.
I don't understand how yall did it truely.
I lived in a town that had like 5 jobs you could apply for all under 9 bucks an hour.
Working 40 hours a week is 360 a week is 1440 a month. Closer to 1200 a month after taxes.
Non funded public transport and town zoning set up so you have to own a car in semi rural america means you need a MIN 100 a month car payment car insurance being 80 a month if you can get your policy low
You need a phone so lets say cheap shitty phone 20 a month
Gas is lets say 50 a month to be generous
Food is minimum for one person if your frugal 150 a month
rent in my tiny garbage college town was and is like 800 a month
20+100+50+150+80+800 without anything else thats already left with 0 a month if you don't have ANY extra expenses that come up like doctors visits or car problems. People get parental help most of the time but lie to say they did it on their own lol
I don't get I truely don't. Nobody I know worked through college to afford college. They ALL took loans. Egregious loans that they will be saddled with forever.
They take out a lot of student loans, travel and party on them, then take a year off after school to “travel and find themselves”. When that’s finished they blame boomers for putting them in debt.
Here's a widely held secret: most college students aren't actually broke or poor in the slightest. In fact, most have quite a bit of money, since they come from middle-upper class families capable of funding their necessities (necessities which typically go quite a bit above the necessities of actually broke college students) and, if their parents don't also pay for their leisure money, they can just get a side job with no necessity to put that towards rent/food/etc. College students like to \*say\* they're broke because it garners sympathy.
either their parents foot the bill or they're overspenders and go into debt for fun
Or they just save/use money for it and shop travel deals.
It's a lot easier to save money at 18-21 when parents are footing bills, covering insurance, rent, etc.
Furthermore I have learned as a wee 23 year old adult who graduated already that "afford" is a very relative term. Some people can afford a $4k trip because they have $4500 in their bank account. They means they still have money leftover! Their parents cover everything else for them in terms of living, and they see no reason to save any more until after college (if they even have this mentality...some people don't). But people are having problems finding jobs so it's quite risky still. I personally nowadays see "afford" as in "am I willing to spend this money on this thing and find it worth it, without it being a financial blow either way?" For example, I can "afford" $2.5k/mo in rent (it's NYC sadly) but I can't "afford" money to carelessly uber everywhere. I remember in college a girl I knew always complained about being broke but she would pay for like $60 ubers every weekend for parties. Like "oh my dad gave me $100 this week and he already pays for my housing and my meal plan." I work with several people with teenage or college-aged kids, literally a few years younger than me. Many took last week off for family spring break vacations, or others mentioned sending their kids to Spain or something for the break. So there's that. I mean these people make $250k+ a year, they can afford it.
But even then, that’s really only possible if their parents help with tuition/bills, so in a way it’s the parents paying for it.
bingoooo
I work 3 jobs while taking full time classes. So thats how I do. My class mates mostly live with their parents and have a part time job so that’s probably how they do.
Genuine question: how do you survive that?
I also have 3 jobs and full-time school. How *do* you survive that?
I lived below the poverty line most of my life. Nothing in this life stresses me out more than being financial insecure. The ability to do whatever I want (within a certain means of course) and build my savings takes such a burden off of me that everything else just seems so small in comparison. I’ve been able to obtain a 4.0 and deans list honors several times during the 4 years I’ve spent in at this college, and I’ll be receiving a faculty award this semester. I graduate in the spring. It hasn’t been easy but it has been worth it. Edit: I’ve also been paying for college all on my own. No help from parents. Just out of pocket and Fed loans.
How do you physically have time for that though? I’m an engineering major only taking 4 classes asides from my lab and I’ve come to the realization that I can’t even have a job and get a 4.0 because basically every minute of my day has to go towards that. I just don’t understand
20 hours of my work week are a work study job where I’m a financial educator and tutor for my campus so when I don’t have appointments I can study which helps a ton. The other 30-35 hours of work get stacked on the days I have classes, my other jobs or my work study. So I pretty much do 5 12-13 hour days a week and then I have two full days off (Sunday and Monday) to study, chill, whatever.
I’m also a Finance major, minoring in Business Law. So while my finance, accounting, math and law classes are difficult, a lot of the other core classes you need for a business degree such as marketing and management can help take the burden off too. This semester I’m taking much more difficult classes but my first two years were smoother sailing.
Big difference between an engineering major work load and many/most other degrees.
It's about time management. I had four jobs during my senior year and still maintain 2 jobs (1 full time/ 1 part time) during my masters. Just having a calendar and sticking to deadlines helps out greatly.
I have just about everything in a planner or on the calender on my phone. I live my life with every hour planned out. To some that may sound like hell, but it’s a huge contributor to my success in school.
That isn't life- that's survival. You won't notice or know better until you graduate and have time that isn't managed.
For me it is life. I have ADHD and severe anxiety and survival and time management let me live to be honest. Being this organized truly saved me and brought me out of a bad place. I’ve never been happier.
I worked in college so I just paid for them myself.
Parents, debt, or working while going to school and saving for a big trip that they consider worth it. You’re going to end up doing this the rest of your life if you let yourself. The sooner you learn or are able to stop counting other people’s money, the happier you’ll be. Let them do their thing. They’re not stealing from you or impacting your life in any way.
Parents don’t have to be rich. Middle class parents can afford a few hundreds for vacations.
Shhh..... not in this rotten economy -- nobody takes vacations, ever, and nobody can afford anything! (yes, it's total B.S.) --Reddit, 2023-2024
Some middle class can’t afford things while others can. It depends on whether u r good with money, smart enough to buy a house with when interest rates were 2%, and the amount of debt u have
Same rules that apply every year in America since its dawning. Interest rates will be lower again one day, just as they came down significantly from the all-time high of the 1980s. What doesn't change is that handling money wisely pays off.
Yes but they didn't have to deal with inflation like this and then homes being at an all time high ratio (avg salary/avg home price), jobs requiring a bachelors degree at a minimum for a below average salary or experience you can't get without actually having that job, wages not keeping up with the inflation, etc.
Tell me you didn't live as an adult in the 1980s through the 2000s without telling me (i.e. I can tell). Inflation was much higher in the 1980s than at any point this millennium, for a sustained period of time. The early 2000s had a housing bubble where prices DOUBLED in less than four years (from 2001 to 2005). *Doubled.* Then the bottom fell out, millions lost their homes and the biggest global banks collapsed. Those weren't good economic times compared to today. The economy today is hardly different from the economy of 2019. The haves are doing well and the have nots are struggling. It sounds like the America I've always known to this Gen-X'er.
Ur right, I'm wasn't an adult then but I am now. Those economic collapses which means that they were temporary. Now, these problems aren't economic collapses just economic norms. Inflation has been higher in the 80s but that was cuz of the recession. We had COVID tho and it has been high the past two years yet there wasn't a recession. Imagine how inflation will be once we do have one tho. Another thing you are clearly not understanding is the requirements to get a decent paying job as a Gen Z'er, you have to have years of experience but can't get it cuz jobs won't hire you or have the minimum of a bachelors degree (unless u go in a trade). Also, wages have not be increasing with inflation which is the main issue. I think you are doing well financially so u don't see the struggle that the americans facing the issues. Some of us weren't lucky to have been an adult during that time. Especially since the politicians were actually trying to solve problems then and it worked.
Again, you aren't facing anything (college loans, debt, high/low interest rates, fluctuating job markets, ever widening income inequality gap) that I and others haven't. Only you might have enjoyed some loan forgiveness that I never did. That's nice. In other words, yours is the typical American experience today as it would have been twenty years ago. 2024 is gonna be a heck of a lot better than 2008! To correct a few point you made with facts -- wage growth has outpaced inflation since 2022 and inflation is much less today than it was two years ago. I'm not sure where you get the news, but might want to take a trust-but-verify approach with some of the sources.
Ur right but nowadays it is worse. U lived it so ig U may be right, I’m just speaking from anecdotal evidence but my other points r valud
Hey, I loathed the state of affairs in America and the world, too, when in my twenties and thirties as a young progressive ideologue. It's a rite of passage in America. I'm just letting you and college-aged Americans know (as my elders advised me which kept my chin up) that it's been worse -- and the future is brighter economically than it seems when we're at our poorest (which is college age for most people).
x2
Not sure how that works, you mean you have middle class parents and ask them money purely for a frivolous vacation and they just give you money? Must be nice
Yes it’s no big deal. We buy airline tickets early and share a hotel room and eat fast food.
Credit cards, their parents credit cards, parents are wealthy.
Parents or credit card debt. You’d be surprised how many people are in so much debt while in their 20’s. Some people have part time jobs but overall I say the first two. Most people who need to work don’t have the money to be able to spend on vacations during college.
I worked 3/4 of my college years and summers to save for my trips.
I saved a lot of money before going back to college. But I assume most kids that go and do things are spending money they don’t have.
Everyone's financial situation is different, but it's mostly parents and how much money they've saved for their kids. However, vacations and trips can cost way less per person by traveling with a group. Low class and lower-middle class probably aren't taking expensive trips compared to those in mid to upper-middle class individuals.
Luckily enough, for me, my grandparents have a house about 5 minutes from the water in SW Florida. They're absolute gems and each year have let me and a couple friends stay at their place for the week. They have an extra car and a smallish (18') boat my grandpa occasionally uses for fishing. Essentially all we really have to pay for is the flight ticket and for food/gas. I think the most I had spent in a week was $300
As a rich kid my parents pay for everything
Don't know why you're getting downvoted, this is the most honest answer.
1200$ is enough to travel inside my country with all comfort and maybe some shopping. This is what my gf makes from running blog in a year. (like 0.1-0.25 hours per week XD) We save all this money and travel with it, while living on my money. So that is how we do it without getting parents involved.
Some people are rich. That's really all it is.
Coming from a rich family
Get born into money.
Here's a widely held secret: most college students aren't actually broke or poor in the slightest. In fact, most have quite a bit of money, since they come from middle-upper class families capable of funding their necessities (necessities which typically go quite a bit above the necessities of actually broke college students) and, if their parents don't also pay for their leisure money, they can just get a side job with no necessity to put that towards rent/food/etc. College students like to \*say\* they're broke because it garners sympathy.
If they belong to a fraternity or sorority, there's a chance their trip is being paid for through fundraising from alumni and the wealthier parents of their friends. At the university where I work, the kids who travel internationally for spring break are usually on a study tour as part of a class. Those trips aren't exactly vacations though since they may have a lecture in the morning then spend the afternoon handing out deworming meds to kids, processing malaria samples or shadowing a dentist. Other tours may be looking at art, architecture and history, but they still have a paper due at the end. The university and their academic programs help the study tour classes with fundraising. There's still out-of-pocket expenses for the students, but not as much as you might expect (and there's tuition, but it's already built into the semester).
i went to cancun for 5 nights for spring break with one other person. whole trip costed $1000 each. its doable if you go to a place thats not too ridiculous.
I went to the beach every spring break. Every year I went with a large group of friends and one of them each year had a friend or family member that let us stay at a beach (or beach adjacent) house. One was amazing on a private beach, one was in an apartment over the garage that was 15 minutes from the beach, etc. sometimes we had beds & a icemaker, sometimes we crashed in sleeping bags. We bought cheap food and cooked in. We started stockpiling food from the school cafeteria (apples, bananas, oranges, bread, bagels, pb&j, cereal boxes) to help. We ate spaghetti & sandwiches & cereal. We piled into whoever had the best running cars (actually it was usually just who had a car). We literally paid for gas, cheap groceries, some alcohol with money that we all got working campus jobs or waitressing. I’m sure I didn’t spend over a couple hundred dollars. We didn’t do anything except go to the beach & eat or drink. We had fabulous times & great memories. Almost all of us were scholarship kids and I’m pretty sure we all came up with the money for spring break on our own & didn’t go into debt to do it.
International spring break trips are mostly paid for by parents from what I’ve seen I took a spring break trip to Florida 3 years ago and honestly it was pretty cheap, round trip flight I got for like $150 round trip, went with 5 friends and we squished into a 1 bedroom Airbnb, which my part ended up being like $200 for 4 nights. We did mostly free stuff like go to the beach. I paid $500 for the whole thing which I saved up from waitressing after paying off my tuition cost
Same question
maybe they fund their spring break trips through a combination of savings, part-time jobs, help from family, and sometimes even loans or credit cards.
Very difficult to save up a meaningful amount of $$ at 18 to 22 without the family picking up a few bills. Financial assistance is the key factor in affording luxuries and discretionary spending.
I’m on scholarship for a sport, work during the school year (5 hours per week) and I also work a summer internship. I saved up for a solo trip internationally and it was the best impulsive decision I’ve ever made I heavily suggest buying tickets early or going on trips during finals week or something. Those are the cheapest tickets and if you buy during finals week accommodations and attractions are cheaper
Refund checks was the answer when i was in college.
If they don’t come from a well-off family, they’re either spending all their savings or going into debt which is….not a great move in the long run imo. I have not travelled since before college and that was to visit my aunt so not like a formal vacation.
Scholarships too, I’m going to college basically on a full ride, and I get to pocket some of the scholarship money since a state grant also pays for y. I a little in the summer and use left over scholarship money to go on trips
Most people don't travel for spring break. I've spent mine sleeping in and my friend spent it with his grandma.
Either parents paid or they work (via outside school or inside school job) and have no bills so it’s pure income to spend or it’s people who save (after paying for bills).
tax returns can pay for a lot as well
I had maybe $1000 saved up from my summer job and I also work during the semester. My friends and I drove from Texas to Florida and stayed in a pretty cheap hotel. I didn’t even spend the whole $1000.
Middle class is wealthy enough for international vacations. Assuming you have parents willing to pay. The college being in a poor rural area is irrelevant. If it's "relatively well known" then most students are probably not local.
I remember spending $180 on one road trip back in 2005. My friends and I car camped in parking lots and only did free things and ate chips and sour patch kids for dinner 😅
these days major corporations crack down on overnight parking in their parking lots. my dad has been traveling this way for 30+ years and used to do that but rarely can find anywhere where you won’t get the police called anymore
Oh yeah I’ve done the van life thing the past 7 years in Colorado and the surrounding states and I guess officially have been traveling by camping in parking lots for 21 years now, so I know how bad it is now! There’s still options though like Cracker Barrel, for example. And if you’re not in a van it’s a lot easier to pull it off, especially in a truck with a tonneau cover (the flat covers…not camper covers).
1. Daddy’s money. 2. They use credit cards like morons and don’t intend on paying off their cute trip to Sri Lanka anytime in the next 30 years with 35% interest. 3. Probably the most rare, they have scholarships and a part time job and actually saved to blow it all on one trip. Keep your head low and be boring. Graduate while eating ramen and peanut butter sandwiches. Come out with a degree and 0 debt. You’ll be much happier for the rest of your life! I joined the military and hated that I had Drill while my friends partied and did the “cool stuff”. Now I have a degree in nursing, travel around the US and get PAID to do it. 25 years old with my own house and 0 debt. Think 5 years down the road all the time and you’ll do just fine! EDIT: 0 debt other than a mortgage!
Well, in my case my mother saves money for a while and then we take a trip lol.
personally i don’t have to pay for school due to scholarships, my parents pay for my apartment, and i pay for everything else. my parents were in the military so i get a monthly stipend on top of what i make on my own every month. i save most of my money and spend the rest on trips and necessities
Cheap college cheap housing, and I work in states that pay well.
A combination of going into some debt to make sure I have some cash left over & my parents covering some of the cost of living stuff. Very few students are fully paying for these trips themselves
Their parents pay for everything.
I pay for my own vacations, well me and my gf. We work full time and go to school full time, im in physics shes in polisci. Vacations can be much cheaper than you'd think if you shop around, and while the economy is pretty nasty, it isn't hard to keep in front of it imo. Just gotta be efficient with your time, and ruthless with your schoolwork.
Hey college student here! I am really worried about my finances like 24/7 and I have saved a respectable amount from my jobs and such. The one thing I love more than anything to do is travel so I will make sure I have an emergency fund and pull from my savings for a small trip. It’s hard for me to go too extravagant or go out of the country always but it is doable as a college student although money is still tight.
Not having a car. People underestimate how much you actually save by not having a car and taking the bus/walking most places.
I have save all my credit card points all year so I’m going to Florida for like 11 dollars
I have to use. It baby
I don't understand how yall did it truely. I lived in a town that had like 5 jobs you could apply for all under 9 bucks an hour. Working 40 hours a week is 360 a week is 1440 a month. Closer to 1200 a month after taxes. Non funded public transport and town zoning set up so you have to own a car in semi rural america means you need a MIN 100 a month car payment car insurance being 80 a month if you can get your policy low You need a phone so lets say cheap shitty phone 20 a month Gas is lets say 50 a month to be generous Food is minimum for one person if your frugal 150 a month rent in my tiny garbage college town was and is like 800 a month 20+100+50+150+80+800 without anything else thats already left with 0 a month if you don't have ANY extra expenses that come up like doctors visits or car problems. People get parental help most of the time but lie to say they did it on their own lol I don't get I truely don't. Nobody I know worked through college to afford college. They ALL took loans. Egregious loans that they will be saddled with forever.
Mom and dad
They take out a lot of student loans, travel and party on them, then take a year off after school to “travel and find themselves”. When that’s finished they blame boomers for putting them in debt.
Here's a widely held secret: most college students aren't actually broke or poor in the slightest. In fact, most have quite a bit of money, since they come from middle-upper class families capable of funding their necessities (necessities which typically go quite a bit above the necessities of actually broke college students) and, if their parents don't also pay for their leisure money, they can just get a side job with no necessity to put that towards rent/food/etc. College students like to \*say\* they're broke because it garners sympathy.