Work-study job outsourced, can't afford college anymore

So, two months ago, near the end of our winter quarter at the college I attend (Rochester Institute of Technology), my work-study job was eliminated and sent overseas to India, and despite pleading with college officials and desperate canvassing of every single open position to students on campus with resumes, I wasn't able to find another. So this was the final straw for me, as I could take out no additional loans due to my own credit being so shitty--I'm only twenty one, and haven't had a credit card or anything like that. The next quarter I would have owed them a little over $2,000, a sum I can barely even imagine. So, I had to take a leave of absence, and go job hunting for a while.

Since I'm in New York, still classified as a student even under leave of absence, and I no longer have at least 12 hours a week of employment, I've also lost my food stamps. I was told that I may have been able to keep them if I didn't have roommates (their income factors into the calculation somehow, even though we don't pool resources beyond paying the rent and utilities), but I can't afford to live by myself, much less the gas, down payments, etc associated with a move. At this point, I can't really afford to live. I'm also ineligible for unemployment, as the way that work-study jobs are classified, apparently they aren't really jobs.

I've applied to every McDonalds, Burger King, Target, Wal-Mart in the area, totaling 13 restaurants, 8 stores, 3 call centers, and 6 IT departments in major companies in the area. No one seems to want young, motivated workers eager to learn and earn. Some places even require that applicants currently be employed (!?!?!) before getting the benefit of consideration.

I'd do anything. Mopping up crap, handling garbage...I don't care. If it means that I can get money to go back to school, I can't think of many things I wouldn't do, except maybe kill someone. If I knew people in the drug market, I'd be giving that a pretty serious look right now. That's how desperate I am.

Is this just me? What's wrong with me that makes me such a bad candidate? I'm reasonably intelligent. I've been programming for years, I have several bugfixes to my name in large-scale OSS projects. I've fixed document tree navigation issues in OpenOffice, audio playback in SongBird...I've even worked on anti-vandalism extensions that are now live on the german Wikipedia, and supposed to go live on the English one sometime this year.

Everything I've read points to companies wanting to seek younger workers, and older workers getting the short end of the stick at every corner, but from where I'm standing, I don't see myself getting the benefit of any kind of advantage. If anything, the established companies (Thompson Reuters, Kodak, etc) are looking for more experienced people or independent contractors, and the lower-end jobs like Wal-Mart and McDonalds seem more interested in older candidates who really need the job, like the single mom with three kids on foodstamps. Nothing against the single mom with three kids, of course--my mom was one of those--its just very depressing to be in my position. Everyone says that computer science jobs are everywhere. I don't see any, and I certainly can't _get_ any.

Already $40,000 in debt to an institute of higher learning, and I can't even get a job flipping burgers.

:'<

Sorry to hear that, the job market sucks in NY right now. I had to go back to school myself and did an internship and got hired. I start in 4 weeks. Just keep plugging away and something will come up. Hopefully there will be more jobs with the warmer weather coming.

Lots of good people and advice here please vent anytime.

go to a community college and appy for Pell and State Grants.. School for profits dont care go look into a state college...
Fed loans are not based on credit they are based on units you are taking...

Judi58 wrote:go to a community college and appy for Pell and State Grants.. School for profits dont care go look into a state college...

Fed loans are not based on credit they are based on units you are taking...

I looked into this. Nearby is Monroe Community College. Academically, its a far cry from RIT, and offers very little in the way of undergraduate research opportunities, publication assistance, student-accessible research facilities, etc. It's more the kind of place where people who can't get accepted anywhere else go than a recognized institute of higher education. I don't mean to disparage the place, I'm just concerned about its reputation as it would reflect on me in the future job market.

I'm very afraid that going there would further hurt my resume, keep me from making a name for myself, and would make the prospect of getting a 'real' job after college much, much harder. Most of the opportunities I've had to work on projects, experiments and studies thus far have been through the university and the community there. That stuff just doesn't exist over at MCC, where 'programming' is something you do at a visual basic console with MSDN documentation. Its not a robust field of study where you examine algorithmic complexity, data structures, database normalizaion, etc. Its worlds apart, and there hasn't been a publication from MCC in any of the major CS academic journals (ACM, IEEE, Information Systems Journal, etc) for as long as I've been paying attention to the subject.

Seems the kind of place that an academic goes to die.

Nonetheless...

The $5,500 from the Pell grant and the $1,200 in state grants is only about $100 over the cost of tuition in the area. Obviously, this is still problematic as I need to eat, somewhere to sleep, etc. Though its still out of my reach, it would certainly be cheaper.

I guess maybe I should give the subject some more consideration. Sucks. No matter what I do, its going to screw me somehow. :<

I understand.. I am in a community college and it is a state college so I dont pay for classes and the pell and cal grants come straight to me. Profit schools are suppose to soon lose goverment grants I am not sure about state money.. I have been going to school 6 mo after I was laid off go at night and now 5 classes from my AA then on to my BA.. and this did not effect me looking for a job or my UI I am going for a different reason as my field now requires a BA to even be talked to.
Good luck..

Pretty sad that even work study jobs are going overseas. Can't say I am surprised because my grad school tended to hire foreign students (note these aren't even immigrants)for the TAXPAYER PROVIDED work study.

Americans betraying Americans.

I personally have lost faith. I apply to jobs and get interviews but thats it, no call backs, not sorry we can't hire you, or congrats you're chosen, no nothing, just interview, get told they're looking at other applicants etc. I'm also in NY. Sometimes i thik they look at you and see.
You're either too young or too old
To fat or too skinny
Bad teeth,
Smokers
To many health problems.

and the list goes on, there seems to be a mass hysteria where as I just go through the motions of applying and if i get the interview i just go not expecting anything. Right now, I don't see me hired any time soon. I'm getting ready to accept that maybe just maybe I'll be poor and destitute and lving out of a box on the street. I dont want to think this, I try to fight, but I honestly have lost hope.