College students describe their financial anxiety

An AP-mtvU poll finds college students anxious about their finances, job prospects after graduation and the pressures facing their folks back home. How some students describe their concerns:

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Two weeks after Josh Donahue, 23, graduated from Oregon State University with an economics degree, he went on food stamps.

Unable to support himself, he lives in Grants Pass, Ore., with relatives and has been searching for work since he finished school in March. He is the first in his family with a college degree.

"I'm on food stamps because then I'm less of a burden, I guess, for my uncle," he says. "That's something that concerns me a lot because I'm leeching off people that I care about."

He uses his $200 a month in food stamps as a way to repay his family for helping him. "I basically just get whatever my uncle and aunt want me to buy."

Donahue wrapped up school in five years, only to confront the worst economy his generation has known.

"I'm just sitting here with a bachelor's degree in a liberal arts subject," he says. "It feels like really, really bad, terrible timing."

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On the morning of her graduation in State College, Pa., Theresa Tauscher is ready to be done with school and nervous about what happens next.

"Right now, I'm going home to try to get my bearings and pay back loans, but I'm definitely still looking for a job," she says.

Tauscher, 22, of Philadelphia, graduated from Penn State with a bachelor's degree in astrophysics, a plan to teach and a job situation up in the air.

"I'm not going to grad school, so it's going to be kind of hard in that area without a Ph.D. or a master's," she says, "but I'm going to see if I can maybe teach at a high-school level, or get a job at a planetarium."

She says one of the reasons she's not going into grad school right away is because she can't afford it.

"I might try science writing as well," she says. "One of my big things is trying to make physics and math available to people who haven't studied as hardcore."

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Buchi Akpati avoids the mall to save money, works three jobs and doesn't get much sleep.

Akpati, an 18-year-old from Woodbridge, Va., is a premed student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

On average, she gets between two and five hours of sleep each night. "Some nights I get six and I'm happy," Akpati says.

Akpati refuses financial help from her parents, she says, "so I can deal with it by myself and just be used to providing for myself, because I'll have to along the way."

She earns $300 to $600 a week, depending on how many hours she puts in at her three jobs — one online, another at the gym and another as a beauty consultant for Mary Kay.

"I can be really impulsive in terms of buying things so ... I stay away from any type of temptation," she says. "Anything I know I need, I go get. But everything else, I just stay away."

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Millen Tesfaldet deals with stress over money and finding a job one day at a time.

"I try not to think about it, but it's a topic, like, me and my best friends talk about every day," she says.

Tesfaldet, 21, of College Park, Md., is psychology major at George Mason.

She works on campus as an instructor for intellectually disabled students, a job she plans to continue over the summer for cash after she graduates this month.

"Now that I won't be in school, I'll have to find another job on top of that," she says. "I have to get money."

She pushed back plans for graduate school this fall because she doesn't want to take on too much debt.

As for a job, she says: "If I find one, great. If I don't, you know, just gotta keep looking."

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With one year left at the University of Maryland, Kristina Molina isn't yet concerned about finding a job.

Molina, of Frederick, Md., has more immediate concerns.

"Student loans are very, very stressful," she says. "And then paying for housing and food and transportation is also very stressful."

Sure, the poor economy doesn't help matters, she says. "I know a lot of people are nervous about graduating this year, but I have another year so I'm OK," she adds. "But I'm nervous and I guess you could say I'm stressed about afterwards, when I do have to pay off the student loans."

Molina expects to have $60,000 in loans when she finishes school.

This summer, she plans to work full time at a daycare center on campus. "It pays pretty well for college students."

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Patrick Recinto, 21, of Lock Haven, Pa., graduated from Penn State with a science degree and is headed to pharmacy school at the University of California-San Diego. He has family in southern California and isn't too worried about the economy.

"Because with health care — people always getting sick — it's hard to see the health care system collapsing even with the economy," he said at his commencement at State College, Pa. "I would say the job market would still be pretty reliable."

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AP IMPACT: Grads face worries about money, future

Associated Press

Tue May 19

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