Snapshots of the Economy: Relentless inflation and a stagnant job market have thrust the economy to the forefront of the November midterms. In the run-up to election day, USA TODAY Money reporters fanned out across the country to examine how Americans are coping with the financial squeeze, from the gut-punch of sudden layoffs and endless job searches to the daily grind of making ends meet. This is the final piece in a six part series.
On a crisp Monday morning in September, Jack Wischhusen, 22, worried about the price of dinner at Chipotle.
Wischhusen had dined at Chipotle on the previous night. The meal set him back nearly $20. The size of the tab got him thinking.
“I make $16 an hour,” he said. “That’s an hour of my life that I just spent on
food.”
The price of a meal out has risen by 3.4% over the past year and by nearly 30% over five years, according to federal data.
A $20 combo meal at a fast-casual restaurant might trigger mild annoyance in a middle-class adult. For a college student earning $16 an hour, it feels like a major financial setback.
College students occupy a precarious space in America’s consumer society. Two-thirds of college students finance their own education, University Business magazine reports. Nearly two-thirds of all college students work, and two-fifths work full-time, according to the Lumina Foundation.
Many students earn minimum wage, which ranges from $7.25 to $17 an hour nationally, or close to it. Work competes with study, and students often must stretch their paychecks to cover not just rent and food but also tuition, fees and books.
‘I’m saving so much’
Wischhusen is a senior at Towson University, a public campus outside Baltimore, majoring in political science. He works two jobs, one on campus, managing student organizations, the other at the front desk of the swanky Baltimore Country Club.
He’s saving up to move in with his girlfriend after graduation. That means buying new furniture and paying rent for the first time. Right now, he’s living with his parents: Towson happens to be his hometown.
“I’m saving so much,” he said.
As colleges go, Towson is more affordable than most. In-state tuition is $12,690 a year for undergraduates. One-third of students are sufficiently low-income to qualify for federal Pell Grants.
But many Towson students live paycheck to paycheck, with monthly budgets stretched so tight that they sweat the small stuff: streaming subscriptions, haircare appointments, or a trip to the discount supermarket.
USA TODAY dropped in on six Towson students one recent Monday, shortly after the start of fall classes, to take the pulse of their money worries. We didn't want to blunder into lecture halls, so university officials helped us round up a mix of undergraduate and graduate students from different backgrounds to talk between classes.
Netflix or Spotify: Which one to keep?
Dan Forson, 21, worried about his streaming subscriptions.
Forson, a senior majoring in media, spends $50 to $70 a month on subscriptions, and the rates keep rising. He recently downgraded his Netflix account to save a few dollars.
“I think the next on the chopping block might be my Spotify,” Forson said. After that, he’ll have to reconsider his subscriptions to his sleep app, Google Plus and Amazon Prime.
Forson comes from a family of seven, Ghanaian immigrants living in Fort Washington, Maryland. He works 20 hours a week in a campus job, doing video production, marketing and hospitality.
For his photography work, Forson is saving up to buy a Sony a6700 camera. Its price tag: $1,400.
Bracing for the bill at the supermarket
Maddie Algier, 21, worried about the cost of groceries.
Over the weekend, Algier had gone to the local Aldi on her first supermarket trip of the semester. She spent $70, just for herself, which seemed like a lot.
“I feel like my grocery budget gets more and more expensive every time,” she said.
Algier is a senior majoring in mass communication. Her family lives in Easton on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, about 80 miles from campus.
Fuel costs eat into her budget when she commutes home, roughly one weekend a month. She hears her parents talk about the spiraling costs of auto insurance, which they cover for her and her younger brother.
Algier studies full-time and works 16 hours a week in Towson’s marketing department and as a campus tour guide. She puts in another 10 hours a week on two unpaid internships, both in social media, which will help build her portfolio for future job applications. The paid work supports her rent for one-fourth of an off-campus apartment, which exceeds $1,000 a month.
After graduation, Algier wants to get a job in public relations, maybe in Baltimore or Washington, D.C. She worries her housing costs could rise dramatically if she has to move.
“My parents live semi-close,” she said, “so that could be a fallback.”
Saving for a trip home, and a winter coat
On that sunny Monday, Samyukta Malla, 22, worried about the price of a winter coat.
Malla is a senior and journalism major from Kathmandu, Nepal. Winter is coming, so she had just visited the mall to shop for outerwear.
“I was looking at a coat at Zara yesterday, and it was like $150,” she said. “I was surprised.”
She decided to hold out for something cheaper.
Malla works 10 hours a week at the Towson career center. Her pay helps her with rent, which keeps going up. When she arrived at Towson in 2023, her off-campus apartment cost $1,900 a month, split three ways. This year, the rent is $2,500.
She’s struggling to put away $1,000 a month toward airfare for a trip home over the winter holiday.
Ticket costs have risen, too. A few years ago, Malla remembers flying home for about $1,500. This year, she said, “it’s going to be like $2,500”: About what she and her roommates pay for a month of rent.
Pay the rent, or get your hair done
Ciara Franklin, 26, worried about her salon tab.
“I just got my hair done, which sometimes you have to skip to pay rent, which sounds terrible, but it’s true,” she said.
The hair appointment cost $95. Franklin remembers when the bill was closer to $50.
Franklin is a master’s student in communication management. On top of her studies, she works full-time in the office of student affairs.
The pay goes toward Franklin’s rent, $1,560 a month, and filling up her car. She drives back and forth to Baltimore regularly to visit family. Lately, the price of gas in Towson has hovered around $4.19 a gallon.
“I have a great car that’s great on gas,” she said. “But the difference between $4.19 and $3.80 is everything.”
Still, Franklin is grateful for her job, which entitles her to free tuition under Towson’s tuition remission program. She plans to graduate in the spring and hopes to get a leadership position in higher education one day.
“I’m not going to cry every time I get paid and pay all my bills,” she said, “because I’m paying them.”
‘Everything just feels expensive’
Carmen Lloyd, 22, worried about how long she can afford to stay in school.
Lloyd is a master’s student in counseling psychology from Howard County, Maryland. She has a full-time load of classes and part-time jobs on campus and at a smoothie shop that add up to another 40 hours a week.
“My days are really long,” she said.
The pay helps support Lloyd’s rent, $1,500 a month for a small apartment that sits between her off-campus job and the university. To save on grocery costs, she has been shopping for produce from an actual farm, where prices are cheaper than at the supermarket.
"At Giant or other big grocery stores, three peaches could cost me around $6. At the farmer's market I go to, I can get a small basket of about four-five peaches for the same price," she said.
“Everything just feels expensive, and you’re playing that catch-up game.”
Lloyd has 1 ½ years remaining in her master’s program. Soon, she’ll have to decide whether to continue her studies after it ends.
“I have always wanted to get my doctorate in psychology,” she said. “But with how expensive things are, and how research has been cut, I was thinking I might pivot and stick with a master’s and open up a private practice, something like that.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: $20 for dinner at Chipotle? The rising costs of college life
