[Alumni-chat] Housing in New York/co-op support

[jal2121 (jah at hotmail.com)]

Reposted from another thread

Co-op thoughts:

If Antioch were to purchase housing, wouldn't the co-op program have to be consolidated at least to some extent?  That is, purchasing housing in the big cities is obviously very expensive, and the College would need to be relatively confident that purchased units would be filled all year round to pay the mortgage.  I don't see how the co-op program could accomplish either goal without adopting some means of requiring students to do at least one  co-op in one or each of those locales.

Also, given that the market for internships, especially paid ones, has changed dramatically since even 10 or 20 years ago---there is a paucity of paying and meaningful internships and there is intense competition for those that do exist--wouldn't it make economic sense to focus on a few markets to give students a competitive edge over other internship seekers?  In particular, by focusing on a few cities, employer relations could be improved; employers could even be given a guarantee that a particular job could be filled year-round.  And the Co-op program professors would not have to travel so much.

An Alternative:

Ironically enough, aside from the College purchasing housing, obtaining a "meaningless" job is probably the best way to earn money and pay rent while on co-op.  Say, for example, a student took a job at Starbucks or Trader Joe's.  In New York, I think you'd earn roughly $9 / hour so that's $360 for a 40 hour week and about 1400 or so a month (after taxes).  It is certainly possible to find an apartment (with roomates) in New York for about  700  to $900 a month per person.  Mind you, I could be wrong on the hourly wages of such jobs, but I do think they pay more than the min.

While such work is more or less meaningless from a "victory for humanity perspective," it would be a practical way to ensure that a student on co-op could sustain herself.

Perhaps an interesting solution to the economic (i.e. cost of living and competitive intern marketplace) versus "meaningfulness" (i.e. career advancing and intellecually stimulating) factors would be to have a pyramid-like system.  That is, first and second year students would be encouraged to take menial (not meaningful) and paid, meaningful jobs would be reserved for third and fourth year students.  Meaningfulness is in quotes because even menial jobs can have a lot of meaning for some people.

I hope this post helps to contribute to a seemingly meaningful discussion,

Jonah Liebert