![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Alexis-BMCC-storybank.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I am majoring in political science and theater, and aim to be a senator or mayor. I believe tuition and other costs to attend CUNY and SUNY schools should be state funded. I started college right after getting my GED. When I started to look into schools, I was worried I couldn’t afford it. \u00a0A huge obstacle was figuring out where my 2 year old son would go while I was in school. My mother was too old and sick to take care of him and I didn’t have any other family members around me so I felt stuck. My only option was to look for daycare\u00a0but the prices were way too expensive. I felt like I would be drowning in debt and costs of tuition and childcare. I enrolled at BMCC\u00a0since it had a childcare center. I decided to do 5 courses in order to qualify for full financial aid.<\/p>\n
Luckily, because of the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), the Pell Grant, and the publicly funded childcare center at BMCC, I was able to afford to attend college. Textbooks and my monthly metrocard were a huge burden for me this year, though. \u00a0Luckily I\u2019ve enrolled in Accelerated Study\u00a0in Associate Programs (ASAP) for next year so those costs will be covered. I have a part time job that covers these costs currently, but between textbooks, metrocards, and paying for diapers and food for my son, I often can’t afford to buy food for myself. I’m determined to get an education, failure is not an option but it’s come at a cost to my health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am majoring in political science and theater, and aim to be a senator or mayor. I believe tuition and other costs to attend CUNY and SUNY schools should be state funded. I started college right after getting my GED. When I started to look into schools, I was worried I couldn’t afford it. \u00a0A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,75,13],"tags":[76,14,16,18,72,15,20],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assembly-district-68","category-senate-district-30","category-borough-of-manhattan-community-college","tag-asap","tag-childcare","tag-financial-aid","tag-job","tag-opportunity-program","tag-tap","tag-textbooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}