Baby Boomers Bragging About Paying Their Way Through College: Why They’re Not Making the Point They Think They Are

This is a common gripe with baby boomers whenever they get fussy about younger generations pointing out how good they had it.  “I paid my way through college, you youngsters just need the work ethic I had!”  There are two true responses to this:

• You bet your bippy you paid your way through college.  We’re all very proud of you.
• That hardworking, college-educated mind of yours isn’t making the point you think you’re making.

Observe:

• The above commentor is 69 years old, so probably graduated high school in 1974. 
• They made $1.59 an hour (the federal minimum wage was slightly higher than this back then, but let’s just go with $1.59). 
• Average tuition, room and board for a public 4 year university was $1,647 in 1974. 
• Meaning… working 16 hours a week at a minimum wage job would gross enough income to pay for college

Now compare that to 2023…

• Average tuition, room and board for a public 4 year university was $22,389
• Federal minimum wage is $7.25
• Meaning… to gross enough income to pay for college while working a minimum wage job would require 60 hours a week

Here’s the thing: nobody is debating whether or not our dear boomer friends worked hard.  They did!  And they did a great job!  The issue is this: if you believe that a college education provides opportunity for upward mobility, baby boomers very clearly had more opportunities to do so, because:

• Being a full-time student while working 4 hours a day for 4 days a week is a manageable thing to do
• Working 12 hours a day for 5 days a week is not. 

It’s very possible that there is a nitpicker out there that is going to point out that the commenter above lived at home while attending a 2 year college then transferring to a 4 year university, but the fact remains: in that same scenario a modern day student working a minimum wage job would need to work nearly 4x the hours to pull off the same plan. 

The intention here isn’t to dunk on baby boomers.  It’s just math, pal.  The student in 1974 had a feasible path to fully pay their way through college, regardless of what they wanted to do.  The question was did they want to work 5 hours a week (community college first, don’t live on campus) or 16 hours a week (get the whole college experience). That isn’t an option for current day students.

So far we’ve accomplished just one (1) thing.  We can now throw some cold hard data right in our drunk uncle’s faces when they talk about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” or whatever dumb thing drunk uncles say these days.  But ultimately that doesn’t matter.  The real question is how to work around the current real-world realities to attempt to make college costs more manageable, if going to college is something you want to do. More to come on that, when available I’ll link that post here.