Ashley A., Brooklyn College

My college is being paid for by financial aid but it will be ending this year.  I still have another year before I graduate and get my bachelors degree. Now I am faced with the fact that I need to find a way to pay for another year of school. Neither my mother nor my father earn enough to pay for my school and no entry level position I have ever had has paid me a wage where I could pay day-to-day expenses and save for school.  

I am twenty-one years old and I am a proud daughter of two immigrants. My mother and father crossed the border twenty-four years ago. Today both my parents are citizens and work as truck drivers. When I was six years old my parents divorced and my mother worked night and day to pay for the food and the roof over our heads. My brother and I are the first generation of college students.