{"id":279,"date":"2017-08-03T13:46:26","date_gmt":"2017-08-03T17:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/?p=279"},"modified":"2017-10-12T16:31:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-12T20:31:10","slug":"stephen-chu-queensborough-community-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/stephen-chu-queensborough-community-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Chu, Queensborough Community College"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-280 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Stephen-Chu-QCC-storybank.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"245\" height=\"352\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I used to work construction before deciding to go back to school.\u00a0 Although I had saved up some money before this transition, school tuition is not cheap at all, combined with rent.\u00a0 I soon had to move back in with my mother but that did not work out, so nowadays I stay with my sister and brother in law.\u00a0 I help out around the house and take care of my nieces, and I work part time but really all I can do is make enough money to pay some bills, and also pay a little rent money to my sister.\u00a0 I borrow money from my mother for school tuition, and the expensive books.<\/p>\n<p>When I first went back to school in 2016, I was told it was too close to my last W2 where I made full time income from construction. So unfortunately, I did not qualify for financial aid. I may qualify this September but, even then, it won&#8217;t be enough to subsidize my total educational costs. It may alleviate a bit of the money I borrow from my mother.<\/p>\n<p>I believe an individual such as myself would benefit from SNAP. \u00a0It could help me afford food while not adding to my stress and financial burden overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I used to work construction before deciding to go back to school.\u00a0 Although I had saved up some money before this transition, school tuition is not cheap at all, combined with rent.\u00a0 I soon had to move back in with my mother but that did not work out, so nowadays I stay with my sister [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,23,53],"tags":[27,18,49,20],"class_list":["post-279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assembly-district-40","category-senate-district-16","category-queensborough-community-college","tag-food-costs","tag-job","tag-rent","tag-textbooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279","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=279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":293,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279\/revisions\/293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}