Where are you seeing that she has roommates? It's not mentioned in the article I read, and I don't see any evidence that the units are shared at https://housing.ucsc.edu/family/. In fact, it says the rent for a 2br is $1700 a month, the same as what she says she's paying.
In any case, the mistake seems to be earlier in the decision-making process, when she decided to become a anthropology graduate student while having a child to care for and without the financial resources to complete the program.
I always find it interesting that people reject the idea that one should have to consider their children or their future children over certain decisions. Why shouldn't we insist that a parent or parent-to-be makes the best possible choices over their employment while considering the child they have or will have?
If for, an admittedly highly contrived, example if this individual had the option of making $50K/yr in a low cost of living area OR the graduate program that would result in subsistence wages in a high COL area, why would we not insist that it is at least in part their own doing? Why would we not consider this to be both a bad decision to opt for subsistence wages as well potentially morally reprehensible for the lifestyle she willingly imposes upon her child?
In an alternate question, what if a similar individual with a child making $50K/yr had the option to purchase a reliable car for $700/mo but instead purchased a luxury vehicle for $2K/mo, forcing her into a situation where she was living on subsistence wages with her child? Would we not criticize the choice?
It seems that today it is becoming a popular opinion that any choice for any additional education (unless its from outside traditional academia and then it's bad) should be viewed as ultimately holy and that criticizing those choices is beyond the pale. I suggest that this may come from the Gen Xers and Millenials of the world who were essentially dictated to that they _had to go to college_ to live a good life. The net result of this has been people attending college and then ending up so-called "underemployed" by the masses. However, perhaps many of these people never should have attended college. Perhaps we sold them a raw deal that we have glorified and encoded in bull shit credentialism that requires college degrees for jobs that I could have easily done as a graduated high school student. For many, especially our youth, this alternative view seems verboten and we are now insisting on making college EVEN MORE prevalent by making it free for all. However, the deal will still be a bad deal. We will then be sending even more individuals into a system that will give them no advantage, take 4yrs of their lives and spit them out just as useful to society as they were going in at great cost.
I only mentioned it as a major contributing factor to her having insufficient financial resources to complete the program. Plainly, she would be able to accept a cheaper housing situation if she did not have a child, and housing is her dominant expense. You yourself called that out, so I don't think it's out of bounds for me to mention it.
What I'd really say is that a single, low-income parent-or-other-person-who-won't-have-roommates should probably not move to Santa Cruz (or Beverly Hills, Monaco, Chelsea, Dumbo, the Chicago Loop, etc.). I get that this is a controversial viewpoint for some folks, but it just seems like fundamental personal finance to me.
Genuinely, yes! If you have a child, you need to consider your child's needs and best interests ahead of your own hopes and dreams and desires.
And if that child's needs are better met by taking a decent job in a lower COL area than by working for poverty wages at UCSC, then you should take that job. Your child is more important than your selfish dreams!
Nobody forced her to make these living arrangements that consume such a large percentage of her monthly salary. While it is regrettable, it's not the responsibility of the university to make sure that its students make good life choices.
Where did I say anything like that? I was just saying that $1700/month for rent is clearly above both the market rate for living with roommates, and above what she can reasonably afford given her salary.
Children living with unrelated adult roommates, or without their own bedroom (shared with siblings until age 10), is considered a strong indicator of poverty.
I expect a graduate student parent to be making significant material sacrifices to support a child (no big parties, no trip to Thailand in the summer) but they shouldn't be in poverty.
They are a student. As much as it sucks they have to support a child, this was a decision that they consciously made. We shouldn't have to throw around money to every grad student just because some small fraction of them are parents.
If you want to talk about programs specifically for supporting parents working towards their education, I'm all ears. But that is orthogonal to the current discussion.
Most grad 'students' work and should be paid as employees. They're not 'studying'. I really believe a grad student should be an employee and treated as such. They're doing the research which is directly tied to the university's ranking. The ranking and name of a university is tied to the applications they receive. They're the ones doing the grading and proctoring. They're not simply taking classes and graduating. They're writing papers and grants, meeting their deadlines for papers by not sleeping and then going to teach a session or grading all day. All while getting paid to work 'part time'.
Regarding being a parent, the alternative is singling them out, make the ones with children pass through hoops in order to receive extra financial support.
On a university, the funding will probably be limited. So now it's not only grad students that are parents but the grad students that are parents that did it early/qualified.
There's already a big discrepancy, even inside a single university, between how much each student earns based on their department/advisor/research.
Where are you seeing that she has roommates? It's not mentioned in the article I read, and I don't see any evidence that the units are shared at https://housing.ucsc.edu/family/. In fact, it says the rent for a 2br is $1700 a month, the same as what she says she's paying.
In any case, the mistake seems to be earlier in the decision-making process, when she decided to become a anthropology graduate student while having a child to care for and without the financial resources to complete the program.