I am a junior at SUNY Purchase studying Literature. I hope to go to law school afterwards. My family feels pretty unstable financially, and college is both a hope and a hurdle. I moved back to New York from Texas in 2021 and I am having trouble with my residency and it is affecting my financial aid; I feel the system is too difficult to navigate by myself. Although my parents support me by helping me commute to my university and paying for my education after aid, it is becoming difficult. I have a part-time job on campus but I am looking for another job on campus. SUNY Purchase is a fantastic university and while it was one of my top schools, one of the major reasons it ranked so high was because I could commute there. With the financial aid packages, on-campus housing was simply not an option for me. I wish there were more virtual options for classes since I have to commute from pretty far and more options for classes, since few classes for my degree are actually offered in a semester. A lot of the offered classes also overlap in their timing, so I can only pick one among many classes I would have liked to take and would help fulfill my degree requirements. I have come to love many things about college here. 

I am currently a Junior at Purchase College. I am a communications major with a minor in Psychology. I decided to major in communications because Purchase is a Performing Arts college so there wasn’t much for me, especially not much that I was interested in here. 

I personally don’t pay for college, Foster Youth pays for my education and I am grateful for that. TAP is very helpful, however I feel like they can help out students more. My older brother was the first one in my family to go to college, however he didn’t get the chance to finish because he had to help pay bills. I will be graduating with my Bachelors in 2024. I luckily haven’t had any big challenges with paying for college because of Foster Youth. The financial aid awards I’ve gotten pays my tuition and food but not my daily living and other expenses such as money for textbooks. Textbooks are very expensive and sometimes I can’t afford them. Some professors also aren’t understanding of that and it can be frustrating. I live on campus however since I graduated high school in 2020, and that was the peak of COVID therefore we were the first ones affected by COVID first hand. I came to live on campus the second semester of my Sophomore year, like others in my class of 2024. I used to work Freshmen and sophomore year to cover expenses because I was living at home however once I got to campus I stopped to focus on school more and make it my priority. The only issues I’ve run into while registering for classes is not having many options and therefore having to settle for certain courses.

I personally feel like we need more of a variety because I’m not an art student here at SUNY Purchase College and this is a performing arts school. Advising for classes and navigating my way through college has been easy because I’m an EOP student therefore I get a-lot of help from my counselor every semester. I am very thankful for that and I have come to realize that students don’t have the support system in college and they all deserve to have that. College is not easy, especially when you have no support system.

I am a senior at Hunter College majoring in Political Science and minoring in Women and Gender Studies. I am a Janovic Scholar, this is a scholarship that I received upon graduating from my high school at Manhattan Hunter Science Highschool. This scholarship has helped encourage me to maintain above a 3.0 grade average and has given me great opportunities to engage with advisors and understand the programs and activities at Hunter a lot better. I chose to study political science after getting an internship at an international law firm, where I learned a lot about international relations, laws, and policies. I’ve enjoyed all of the political science classes that I’ve taken at Hunter and have learned a lot. 

I commuted from my home to Hunter by train or bus every day since my freshman year. I live with both of my parents and they didn’t feel like they needed my help with paying rent, so that was not too big of a financial burden on me. However, I did help with the phone bill, paid for my books, my commute, my meals, and the fees and tuition not covered by financial aid. This has been difficult for me since I work as a freelance part-time nanny. I have not taken out student loans and I do receive grants to pay for my education, but for a few semesters, my tuition has not been fully covered. This was not easy for me, since I’ve only been supported by one parent, as my father is disabled and is unable to work. Working minimum wage while caring for a disabled parent has sometimes gotten in the way of my schoolwork. 

I remember one night where my father had to have an emergency surgery and I was the only one available to take him to the hospital. This was the night before one of my finals. I stayed at the hospital all night and the next morning I came into my finals over half an hour late and was only able to answer about a third of the exam. I had never experienced anything like this before and I ended up failing the class. This was extremely difficult for me to accept as I had always been an above-average student. This failed class dropped my GPA tremendously. I ended up taking the class again a year later and passed with an A. However, I am still working to remove the F from my transcript since I plan on applying to law school. I have gone back and forth for weeks with the office of advising at Hunter and have sent them multiple medical documents from the surgery and I still have not been able to get the grade removed from my transcript.

I also think that adjunct professors oftentimes bear the brunt of funding cuts at CUNY. I have had 2 incredible professors and they have both been laid off since the Spring 2020 semester. This not only negatively affects the adjunct professors, but it also affects the students. I think that at CUNY, it is a bit difficult to maintain relationships with professors, since adjunct professors are constantly getting fired, it makes it even more difficult. 

All in all, financing my education has not been easy and it has not been easy for many students at CUNY. Due to this, you should support work-study programs, student-loan forgiveness, aid from the state and federal governments, and aid from colleges. Why? Because many students are struggling with financing their education to the point where they do not even have enough time to focus on their schoolwork. Also, many students are currently in debt or will be in debt and they will have a long and difficult time paying back their loans.