So I am one of these statistics. I have an 18 year old that will graduate high school in June. She will take a gap year and live at home working for Americorps

So I am one of these statistics. I have an 18 year old that will graduate high school in June. She will take a gap year and live at home working for Americorps Vista help disadvantaged schools with STEM programs. She will then attend the Olin College of Engineering [0] My oldest is 23 and graduated in May of 2015 from a 4 year liberal arts university. She is working part time in our local library system. She wants to be a librarian which requires a Master's of Library Science (MLS). So she will attend an online program at Florida State for an MLS next fall. In the library system she works in, library associates are expected to give 2 to 5 years of part time work before they can go full time. The pay is okay, not great. None of her peers live on their own. At 20 to 24 hours a week they just can't pay for a place of their own (renting or buying). Full time work comes with a MLS. We think the library system is taking advantage of minimal benefits for part timers and are taking advantage of these youths. But the passion of people that want to work in libraries have them working part time and making the sacrifice of living at home. My daughter pays minimal rent to us, her auto insurance, gas, and medical co-pays. She saves everything else and when she starts graduate school her savings will start to evaporate. We have a few friends that have children living at home. The reasons are varied. One is because of some mental health challenges. Some for living at home and attending a local college full time to save money on room and board. Some because they work part time and go to school like our child. Her mom and I are 100% comfortable with this. We have some pseudo empty nester rules in place to help us have more freedom from our children and the same for them. However we still try to eat dinner together most nights. This is the together time that binds us as a family. Ten years ago I would not have imagined this situation but it is what it is. For the record we live in a coastal state in the US (Virginia) but in the center of the state (Richmond). [0] http://olin.edu/ http://olin.edu/ Edit: fixed typo