Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-10-18
YOUNG GIRLS IN COLLEGES.
What It Costs to Enter Big Institutions
and the Amount Necessary for
EuxurieS.

This is the time of year when am
bilious girls in different parts of the
country are counting the costs of
college education. Fortunately for
them the scale of expenditures in the
colleges open to women has not risen
high enough to make the most econom-
ical damsel uncomfortable among her
richer classmates. Practically, with
out exception, the standards of dress
in the girls colleges are simple, and,
more than that, the plucky young
woman who is working her way
through a four years course on short
commons of pocket money is often
elevated into something very like a
heroine.
At Vassar college the smallest sum
on which a girl can pay her bills,
aside from scholarship aid, is about
$3.50. Of this amount 800 is for
board and washing. A genius in
thrift-and Vassar sees such genius
now and then-can buy her books and
stationery and supply herself with the
small incidentals dear to school girls for
the remaining $50. Car fare, if she
goes home between terms, and the
larger items of dress are not included.
Necessary expenses at Smith, Welies-
ley, and Bryn-Mawr do not vary
greatly from these figures. Five hun
dred dollars would represent the aver
age yearly expenditure of no small
proportion of the girl students in east
ern schools. Six hundred dollars is a
liberal allowance, and 500 more than
luxurious. The largest sums spent
the president of Harvard deemed
necessary for comfort and peace of
mind at Cambridge.
Boston university, of the cOeduca-
tional schools, has no dormitory sys-
tenn. and girl students from a distance
exercise no small ingenuity in housing
and feeding themselves without over
weeniug board-bills. Four dollars
week, when necessary. some of
them find it possible to live for, or
Sl4S for thirty-seven weeks in the city.
Add 500 for tuition and $50 for books,
car fare. and incidentals, and years
schooling is provided at cost of $500
Some of the country colleges, while
giving substantial education treat the
pocket-book with great leniency. ST..
Lawrence university. in the northern
part of New Y York, for instance, tutors
young women, as well as men, for $40
year. and the towns-people take
them to their hearts and their best
guest-chambers for S.. so week. Edu-
cation there still costs substantially
what it used to at the older schools in
the pioneer days.
To work ones way through college
unaided is hard task, but now and
then accomplished by a sturdy girl.
A large-eyed brunette, not sturdy, but
fragile-looking, graduated from Bos-
ton university few years ago by find
| ing situation as waitress in a res
taurant, wearing the white apron dur
| ing the rush hours morning and night,
| and in vacation season the day through.
| To save is something easier than to
| earn, and l have in mind one group of
| four girls, two from Boston university
and two at the Harvard Annex, who
| engaged two adjoining rooms in quiet
/ house in Boston and boarded them
selves on an average of $50 per week.
Their rooms cost s., or $1,25 each.
| They took breakfast at small restau-
rant, where oatmeal and steak cost &c
cents. They ate an apple and slice
of bread for lunch and at night they
pooled resources, spreading napkins
on the top of trunk and feasting on