I think I understand the point you&#x27;re raising - students should focus on school-work and not have to worry about working to pay bills.<p>I would disagree, however.<p>&gt; I had to quit working in my second year to be able to have enough time to study as much as I needed.<p>Wrong, you chose to prioritize school over working (and I presume the resulting outcome was more student debt to continue paying for your expenses).<p>You didn&#x27;t have to quit working, you chose to. You could have easily reached an equilibrium between work and school by reducing your classload, and continuing to work. School would have taken longer, but you would have less debt (and I&#x27;d argue you&#x27;d be a better workforce candidate after graduating).<p>Getting back to the main point, if you decide not to work and pay your living expenses yourself, then you will need to either borrow that same money (in a loan for example), or get a relative to pay your way for you. It&#x27;s the same dollars at the end, it just matters how you obtained them.<p>So when people complain about very high school fees, and it breaks down to 60-80%+ are normal living expenses, it&#x27;s tough to find sympathy. The only real way to get rid of those fees entirely is to have the Tax Payer foot them for you (and now we&#x27;re back to just moving numbers around to wind up with the same exact dollars spent on living expenses). Somebody&#x27;s got to pay for it.<p>Further, I would argue students who work while attending university gain invaluable experiences that a normal &quot;professional student&quot; would not be exposed to. Working with others in a true team environment, typical interactions in an office, exposure to &quot;real&quot; work in industry, &quot;real&quot; consequences for missing an assignment or due date, etc. It matures the individual a great deal - where-as a typical &quot;professional student&quot; graduates with none of these experiences, then spends 1-3 years in industry having to learn them before becoming truly productive and valuable to their company.