Self-Support in College Style
The development of aids for the able youth whose resources are not adequate for the expenses involved has been concomitant to the social evolution which decries ability to pay as the selector for higher education. Scholarship funds, fellowship funds and loan funds, distributing cash or credit, self-support agencies and the college division of the National Youth Administration, giving work aid, all have grown to implement the change. One self-supporting student-if he be a superior student-may have recourse to all of these devices for financial aid before he graduates. Scholarships and fellowships, by their very intent, however, reach only the top ranking few; the average student is reluctant to accumulate debt, and for many a loan is a last resort; the NTA' program, a superstructure of student employment, is limited by quota to a comparatively small group of selected candidates. For the majority who put themselves through college the chief dependence has to be on the income from a part-time job plus the savings from full-time summer work. As early as the i890's there sprang up some unusual agencies in colleges to concentrate on placement of students in part-time jobs. Today a service of the kind exists on almost every American campus. It may be performed by a dean's office, the Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., a student association, faculty members, or others. It may be found centralized in an employment office with a part-time manager, perhaps a student earning his way. In the larger institutions the services have grown to such magnitude as to require staffs with full-time directors. It is noteworthy that whatever the instrument, the student is rarely charged a fee for the service. The primary function of such an agency is to bring together the students who need jobs and the employers within or without the institution who need part-time employees.