Hard-Earned Degrees : To cover the cost of college tuition, which has grown by a staggering 35% nationwide since 1990, students say they must work, borrow and count on families to pitch in.

Across the San Fernando Valley this month, graduating seniors are counting down to college. For many, attending a four-year school is hope they’ve nurtured for years, and they wouldn’t dream of letting money stand in their way. But today, many are also finding the personal cost is high. Local families tell of moonlighting, eating less and spending long nights poring over financial forms in their quest for a college education.

For all but the richest students, paying for college is getting more painful. Federal financial aid allocations haven’t kept pace with tuition, which has grown by a staggering 35% nationwide since 1990, according to the U.S. Department of Education. In California, especially, where an era of heavily subsidized higher education is drawing to a close, cost increases have been especially eye-popping. Tuition and fees at Cal State Northridge this year are almost $1,000 per semester. Five years ago, they were $450.

During the same five-year period in which CSUN’s tuition doubled, the average weekly wage for college-age workers rose by less than 10%, making it more difficult than ever to work one’s way through school.

These cost trends have unleashed an era of borrowing: The amount borrowed on student loan increased by about 40% last year over the previous year, according to a report by the American Council on Education. And there is some evidence that the choices for poor students are becoming more limited: USC economist Morton Schapiro says half of all public college-bound students from lower-middle-class and poor families now wind up in community colleges, up from 40% in 1980. “It’s a great irony that a lot of low-income students can’t afford public schools,” he said.

For Adelle Daniels, a licensed vocational nurse, being a middle-class parent of a college-bound senior means taking a second job. Her daughter Christine Daniels will attend private Syracuse University in New York in the fall.

Syracuse is expensive--the total for room, board, tuition and other expenses is about $25,000. Adelle Daniels, a single mother, will probably have to pay $6,000 per year of that, unless Christine wins a few more scholarships. The rest of the cost will be taken care of by grants, scholarships and $4,000 per year in student loans.

The costs to Adelle are based on her tax return from last year. But the amount she earned, $49,000, again, doesn’t tell the whole story. Awash in credit problems following her divorce, Adelle earned that much because she was working 60 hours per week at two jobs. She recently cut back to a more sane 40 hours. But after seeing what her bills for Christine’s college education will be, she’s started looking for another job again. “She wants to go to school, and this is what she wants. I’m not going to try to stop her,” said Adelle, adding she’s proud of Christine, the first of her four children to go to a four-year college.

Christine is doing her part. She recently went to night school to learn how to be a bank teller for the summer, and says she may consider taking out more student loans to avoid “being a burden on my mom.”

Christian Lopez began his Herculean efforts to attend a four-year university when he was in the eighth grade. He stayed behind when his mother moved back to Mexico, and has been supporting himself ever since. He worked, although he is underage, at retail stores and a plumbing firm. Now 18 and a senior at San Fernando High School, he’s planning to attend UC Berkeley in the fall, paying for it with a combination of scholarships, loans and work.

Lopez gets by living in a fixed-up garage attached to the home of a stepsister. He pays $200 per month rent, or tries to.

“I don’t have time to cook. All I eat is milk and cookies,” he said. Although he gets off work most nights at 11, Lopez has managed to remain an honor student, but he admits he almost never has time to study, and sometimes sleeps through his first class. “I do my homework in class,” he said. “I take my backpack home every day, but I never end up doing homework.”

If anyone were to get a generous slice of financial aid, you’d think it would be a student like this. And, indeed, Lopez is expecting a relatively fat package from UC Berkeley.

But he is still worried. His family situation--his father is in Nevada--is not easily summed up on a financial aid form. Lopez applied for financial aid as an independent--he pays taxes and his parents don’t claim him on tax returns--but because he was not of age, problems emerged, he said.

Lopez believes grants and scholarships will pay all but about $4,000 of the estimated $13,500 per year cost of tuition and living expenses at Berkeley. Add to that a $1,500 per year student loan, and that leaves an estimated $2,500 per year that Lopez must earn through work study or another job. Some of that is designated as his parents’ contribution. In reality, Lopez will have to pay it himself.

Lopez thinks it will work but he doesn’t think it will be easy. “It’s been hard for me through high school working,” he said. “And I know college is going to be harder.”

He’s still not sure if he will have enough money to pay for books, materials and other expenses. Junk food is likely to remain part of life for this 6-foot-1-inch teen-ager. He says he plans to opt for the university’s lightest and cheapest meal plan while living in the dorm--just 10 meals a week.

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Anatoly Bushler, 18, a Taft High School senior, is the other side of the financial aid equation. Bushler is also going to Berkeley, and he also plans to major in psychology, so these two young men could easily be competing in the same classes.

Bushler is the only son of an electrical engineer and a chemist who are able and willing to pay for his college. A stellar student, Bushler is going to Berkeley because, although he was accepted at Stanford University, he doesn’t want to unduly burden his parents. Stanford’s $30,000-per-year cost would mean tapping “a significant portion” of their income for four years, he said.

Because he is the only son of two professionals, he is not eligible for financial aid at Stanford or Berkeley, and although he has won some scholarships, they hardly make a dent.

Unlike Lopez, Bushler won’t have to work during his first year at Berkeley. But in his case also, financial-aid requirements don’t tell the whole story. This is a family that moved from the former Soviet Union with nothing just six years ago, learned English, became citizens, and rebuilt their lives from scratch. Now their reward is being part of a middle class that is increasingly squeezed as education costs rise. That comes with being a citizen, said Bushler, but he added, “The middle class gets the burden, and it’s very unfair, because it’s a very hard-working middle class.”

Teodora Gonzalez, another San Fernando senior, has chosen a cheaper option. She is going to CSUN in the fall. Like Christian Lopez, she is already living on her own, sharing a house with her sister, and working her way through high school with a minimum wage job at a record store. She is getting enough in financial aid that she estimates her own costs at CSUN will only be about $2,000 per year. She plans to live where she is, and keep working, hopefully at a better paying job.

One thing that’s for sure, though, is that her ’82 Camaro will have to be sold to pay for current bills and college costs. But the problem then is transportation. “How am I going to get to and from school?” she asked.

Gloria Villalva, mother of San Fernando senior Yvonne Viera, said her family has cut back on groceries, and has cut out recreational activities such as weekend drives so that Yvonne can go to Occidental College. The family income was $41,000 last year. But Villalva’s husband has part ownership of his business, so the family qualified for less in financial aid than they first thought. Moreover, another daughter has a baby and lives at home, an extra cost that is not reflected in the family’s tax returns. So Yvonne, an A student, will have to take out $6,000 in loans per year, and her family will have to come up with $6,500 per year. The rest of the $23,500 cost of tuition and living expenses will come from grants and scholarships.

Yvonne says she is surprised at having to borrow so much despite the hard work she put in to maintain her grades. Meanwhile, her mother found applying for financial aid like “confessing your whole life to a piece of paper.” Questions about her divorce from Yvonne’s father and his whereabouts were unsettling, she said.

Still, the family stuck it out, believing that the forms, the debts and the effort are still well worth it.

Despite the cost, it seems, the dreams of those who aim for a college education are intact as ever.

“I want to become something,” explained Lopez. “I want to stop the cycle my family has been in for three or four generations.”