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Study Finds Students Earning, Borrowing More
By Gwendolyn Bradley
A higher proportion of first-year college students than ever before—47 percent—expect to work to help pay for college expenses, according to an annual survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. The survey, which is administered to about three hundred thousand entering students each fall, found that the expectation varies by sex, with 53 percent of first-year women and 40 percent of men planning to get jobs. In recent years, the percentage of students planning to rely on family resources and loans to cover their educational expenses has also increased. Among the 2004-05 incoming students, 9 percent expect to borrow more than $10,000 to cover first-year expenses, up from 8 percent in 2003 and 6 percent in 2001. "Major" concerns about the ability to pay for college are reported by 13 percent of all students and by 23 percent of students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.
The survey, which covers a range of topics, also found that this year's first-year students are more politically polarized than students in years past, that interest in politics is rising, and that while gender differences in computer usage have disappeared over time, differences based on race have persisted.
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