A day after paying her rent, a college student goes to the store for groceries. She limits herself to off-brand cereal and the cheapest chips she can find. As she pulls up to the self-checkout line and scans her groceries she gets ready to pay, swipes her card, and DECLINED. She quickly pulls up her bank account on her phone. $32.87. She makes the transfer from her savings account. Only about $1,000 left in her savings, she wonders how she’s going to pay for her college tuition this year.

She picks up the few groceries she needs and puts the rest back. She decides that if she wants to finish college she is going to have to get another job on top of her current work study. The stress of being broke weighs down on her as she takes her singular bag of groceries to her car.

Once she starts her car she notices her engine light is on. “Oh great,” she thinks to herself, “more money I’m going to have to spend.”

College students everywhere are struggling to pay even the bare minimum. Things continue to get more and more expensive, yet students are still getting paid minimum wage. The question is: “How are students supposed to get their money?”

“The past two years at Morningside I have had 3 different jobs to help pay for school and other expenses,” says junior Isabelle Majeres. “I just recently quit one of those 3 jobs and I am already looking for a new one, after realizing that 2 just isn’t enough to pay for everything.”

This is exactly why Retention has become a big issue for Morningside, along with many other institutions. Students become so busy coming up with money that they may fall behind in their studies, have to retake classes, or even drop out of school.

Morningside offers a work-study program for students who meet the requirements. This gives students a variety of opportunities to work both on and off campus, in roles that prepare them for the future. “I have been able to work in a Kindergarten classroom off campus as a way to get a feel for the classroom environment and prepare myself for when I become a teacher myself,” says freshman Shelby Edwardson. However, she continued to explain how she still has to work her part-time job at Casey’s general store to get by.

A student wakes up at 7:30 and goes to their 8 AM class. They go straight from class to their work-study job. They clock out of their work-study job at 1:30 and head to their 1:45 class. After this class is over, they go home and change into their work clothes while grabbing a snack as they head out the door. They arrive at their after-school job at a restaurant, getting off at 10 PM when they can finally start working on their homework, and finally get to bed at 1 AM. Then they do it all over again.

Students are already stressed with the schoolwork itself, and having to worry about where their money to pay for school will come from does not help their mental health. This explains why so many students decide not to attend college, or to drop out early because they can’t afford it.