Life after high school the reality of low wage workers

by Brenda Garcia

      

Andrea Garcia, 21, High school graduate working a full time job to help support her family, while saving enough money to go back to college.

“I didn’t plan for this to be my life after high school…,” Andrea says sadly. She remembers the days in high school when she would look forward to the college years and how she would change the world.

Now a days it is beginning to be more common to see college students drop out and get full jobs to pay for living expenses. Living expenses may include phone bills, rent, cable bill, gas, clothes and food. For this reason, many don’t move out of home until there long past 30. If we look at how much we have gotten out of the recession we can easily see that not a cent has changed on the minimum wage. The possibility of getting ahead while earning minimum wage has gotten dimmer. If you would calculate how much it cost to pay rent and living expenses at a cheap apartment you could still come out short over 100. For a single person the opportunity to find the money to afford a higher education comes down to not affording to lose a job to take courses.

“I plan to save enough money to go back to school and get an associate’s degree in finance, I know how ironic,” Andrea says with an optimistic perspective on the future.  She believes that if she sets some goals and with the help of her family she will achieve her dream to become an accountant.

She is working currently at burger king and Cinnabon. She works as a cashier and works 40 hours a week at minimum wage. Her hours vary as do most of the fast food restaurants jobs, which can make one paycheck’s pay good and the next not so great. She attended college at mission community college for a semester then was forced to drop out due to financial problems in her family. Her dad lost his job in jan 2010 just in enough time to let her finish her semester and have her drop out without missing deadlines. Her mom also working at burger king challenged herself by taking three jobs to support her family but with minimum wage jobs she had to ask Andrea to help out with the rent and other stuff around the house. Having two little sisters Andrea refused to just stand aside while her mother killed herself with so much work and have her continue to pay tuition.