How Helping College Students With Hidden Costs Can Unlock Opportunities

When Maycee DeJersey Gonzales replaced her tablet with a used laptop that she bought from her friend, she was grateful to do away with the smaller keyboard in favor of her new device’s larger one. 

“It was terrible because the keyboard is like super close together,” she said of her old tablet. 

But as she starts a new school year, the laptop is on its last legs. She’s not looking forward to spending  more money on a new one. 

DeJersey-Gonzales had chosen Sierra College, a local community college, partly because she wanted to avoid taking on the kind of student debt she had watched her mother and aunt pay off well into adulthood. In California, the California College Promise Program makes community college tuition-free for qualifying students. But that doesn’t mean college is free.

There are still textbooks and other supplies to pay for. And because Sierra College is about an hour from her home, there’s the cost of getting there.

“Living so far away from Sierra College, I didn’t realize the gas is kind of expensive. Especially now, you know, gas is $6 a gallon,” she said.

DeJersey-Gonzales is far from alone. The sticker price of college is only one part of what students actually pay. Even when financial aid covers much of a student’s tuition, other expenses, including housing, food, transportation, technology and child care, can make college unaffordable. Those costs can be particularly difficult for students from low-income families, students of color, students from immigrant families and first-generation college students, who may have fewer financial resources to fall back on.

The Costs of College Go Beyond Tuition

The price of going to college goes beyond tuition, according to Sara Goldrick-Rab, a sociologist who studies the price of college. 

“[The price of college] is mainly coming from living costs, in particular from rent.” 

Housing is one of the largest expenses students face. Data from the U.S. Department of Education show that room and board can make up a substantial portion of the total cost of attending college, particularly for students who live away from home.

For Goldrick-Rab, this is why conversations about making college more affordable can miss a crucial part of the problem. Lowering tuition does not always address the costs students still have to pay for housing, transportation and food.

Anything that affects the general population, like the rising cost of produce or increased rent, is going to hit college students even harder, according to Goldrick-Rab. 

“Not only do college students still have to deal with the price of rent, but they have less time to deal with the cost of rent because they’re actually in school and that is work,” she said. 

In 2022, about 44% of full-time students ages 16 to 24 were employed. DeJersey-Gonzales got a job last school year at a local pizza parlor as a busser. It has helped her shoulder expenses, but she’s had to carefully balance her need for money with having time to study. 

“We had lost two girls at our work. They got fired. So me and my other coworker had to pick up the slack,” she said. “So definitely during that time it was stressful.”

College Students Aren’t All Carefree 18-Year Olds

Popular movies about college often portray students as young and carefree, living in dorms and figuring out who they are. The reality is much more varied, according to Goldrick-Rab, who says that the number of students who go to college without significant financial concerns make up less than 20% of students. 

Some students are supporting families. Nearly one in five undergraduate students are parents themselves, according to the Urban Institute. Those competing responsibilities can make it harder to stay enrolled. In general, almost 40% of college students fail to complete their degree program within an 8 year period. 

And even students who receive financial aid, which is meant to buffer aspiring scholars from the cost of college, sometimes have to leave school because of finances. For example, 53% of students who receive Pell Grants, federal grants intended to help students with significant financial need, graduate from four-year institutions compared to non-Pell students who graduate at a rate of 73%.

In her interviews with thousands of Pell Grant recipients, Goldrick-Rab encountered some who had stopped attending college. 

“They all ended up feeling the same way: that they have done something wrong,” she said. “We make people think that their failures are the private problems of personal individuals because we don’t want to admit that these are systemic failures.” 

While many students who stop out intend to return to college, only about a third of students do so. In some cases, they end up with no degree and more debt than when they started.

“It’s not like anybody’s calling them and saying, ‘Hey, come back, hey come back.’ When you leave a college, a college pretty much usually leaves you,” Goldrick-Rab said. 

Typically, college leads to higher earnings and opens up specialized career paths. Though the cost of college is rising, the number of students going to college has increased in recent years. According to Godrick-Rab, one of the best tricks to keeping students from feeling completely overwhelmed from the cost of college is an affordable one. 

“Just telling students about existing resources helps them get connected more easily,” she said. 

What Opportunities Are There for Vulnerable Students?

The Trump administration has proposed cuts to several programs that help vulnerable populations attend college. In some cases, organizations are having to fill in where schools fall short. 10,000 Degrees, a California-based organization has been around for 45 years. 

“We support students coming from low income backgrounds to be able to have all of the relevant information, guidance, and resources so that they can get to and through college,” said 10,000 Degrees executive director Kim Mazzuca. 

Mazzucca and others at the organization are seeing their role expand in a challenging season of supporting students. They are prepared to help because what they are seeing now is similar to issues students faced nearly a decade ago. 

One of the students they supported was Ariana Aparicio, who grew up in a small town in West Marin. With parents recently immigrated from Mexico who did not go to college and worked exceptionally hard, she had always wanted to attend college as a way to unlock more opportunities. 

Because of her undocumented status she couldn’t access traditional financial aid opportunities available to students with US citizenship. Her counselor introduced her to 10,000 Degrees. The organization helped her complete her college applications, secure financial aid and assigned her a mentor.

“The questions that my mentor was able to answer revolved around financial aid and revolved around how to look at my options,” Aparicio said.

She ultimately decided to attend Santa Rosa Community College, about an hour’s drive from her home. While she encountered challenges such as navigating a commute and not being able to apply for a California driver’s license because of her undocumented status, she was also extremely fortunate because DACA, an immigration policy that allowed children of undocumented immigrants to work in the US, passed before she graduated. She went on to work at 10,000 Degrees and eventually completed a PhD in education administration and policy from the University of California Riverside.

Today, 75,000 undocumented high school students graduate each year across the U.S., according to a 2026 analysis from the Migration Policy Institute. For many of those students, the transition to college comes with additional uncertainty as immigration policies and enforcement change.

“I know people are tired and overwhelmed, but this is the moment in time to engage more,” said Mazzuca. “We need to uphold the power of education.”

After receiving 42 million dollars from MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist, novelist and co-founder of Amazon, 10,000 Degrees is committed to expanding their services to support more students like Aparicio, with more targeted outreach and partnerships with new schools. While current circumstances continue to change for students, 10,000 Degrees’ goals stay the same: to ease fears and make sure parents and students know what pathways are available to them. In many cases, it’s more than they think.