As graduation looms near and thousands of University of Wisconsin students descend into the real world in search of a full-time job, and thousands of others scramble for a summer position, it can be hard to ignore the frighteningly high unemployment rate.
Despite the fact that Madison has been able to insulate itself from much of the recession, the unemployment rate still remains relatively high, at 6.4 percent, making the level of poverty that exists throughout the city quite daunting.
""Madison has changed to an extent,"" Bill Clingan, director of economic and community development for Madison, said. ""Even with the recession the city has been fairly well-protected with the university and so many state employees anchoring it, but still the unemployment rate is twice what it normally is.""
While many students are sometimes able to avoid falling into a poverty trap because they are in school and usually supported by governmental aid, it is not the case for everyone, especially when part-time jobs are increasingly hard to come by.
""College students are notoriously poor. In a robust economy, there are enough jobs for folks,"" Clingan said. ""But now when employers are looking for employees, are they going to hire the person with a family, or a college student? They become pitted against one another and a change in the service sector occurs.""
Although more companies are hiring across the nation compared to last year and students stand a better chance of landing a job, the recession is still present, so the traditional next step after graduation is not clear-cut.
""[Students] start contemplating grad school, or maybe doing some volunteer work and a part-time job to weather it out,"" Clingan said. ""It's fair to say students are not going to have a lot of money while in school … It's not right or wrong, it's usually just by definition. They have limited resources as well as competition in the work force. And that's unfortunate. Poor is poor.""
While many college students may struggle for money to help pay their tuition, some say it is unfair to consider them impoverished.
Tim Smeeding, director for the university's Institute for Research on Poverty, said it is hard to talk about students being impoverished at all.
""That doesn't mean that some students' families are considered poor,"" he said. ""But a student makes a choice to go to school and they're heavily subsidized. That's very different from, for instance, someone of that age who is an unmarried mother with two kids, who isn't in school.""
Chynna Haas, president of the Working Class Student Union, disagrees with Smeeding.
Haas, currently a senior preparing to graduate in May, has worked two jobs since before her freshman year of college just to make ends meet. During the school year she works at least 35 to 40 hours a week, while still maintaining a full-time class schedule. During the summer months, she has worked up to 70 hours a week to earn money for the next year's tuition costs. Her parents are not in an economic position to help financially.
""There are students who are living independently at or below the poverty level,"" she said. ""I have peers who have applied for food stamps and are using those to get what they need.""
Haas, a first-generation college student who has paid for 99 percent of her educational costs and taken out two federal-subsidized loans to do so, will graduate in a not-so-hot job market with $20,000 in debt.
And although according to Smeeding, if a student has a college degree they will find work, it still does not ease Haas' time during school.
Haas said the university should do more to prioritize financial aid.
Still, possessing a college degree puts soon-to-be graduates in a better position than those who don't. And at the very least, when the economy turns back around, college graduates will be prepared, Smeeding said.
""Low-skill wages in the service agencies have declined,"" Smeeding said. ""But employment among people with college degrees actually went up.""
