{"id":799,"date":"2019-06-11T15:52:16","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T19:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/?p=799"},"modified":"2019-06-11T15:59:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-11T19:59:02","slug":"neely-benoit-suny-cortland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/neely-benoit-suny-cortland\/","title":{"rendered":"Neely Benoit, SUNY Cortland"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019m a Professional Writing major with a minor in Anthropology, and this is my fifth year here at SUNY Cortland. I\u2019m planning to go to grad school after this to study Anthropology and Political Science. Right now, I take out private loans. I think I got the Pell Grant for about a semester, and it was only like $50. I don\u2019t receive TAP, and I couldn\u2019t even qualify for the Excelsior Scholarship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a student director in one of the campus buildings, and I also pick up shifts at Auxiliary Services as a floater. So I\u2019ll wash dishes or cook chicken on the grill for six hours straight. In general, I work anywhere between 12 to 25 hours a week. I\u2019m always looking for more work because I don\u2019t get any money for rent or food, and that takes away from study time and homework. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I applied for food stamps, but I wasn\u2019t eligible because I didn\u2019t work enough to qualify. They don\u2019t take into consideration that I\u2019m also a full-time student. I\u2019m already a year late to graduate, but I\u2019ll be on track to graduate this year. If it wasn\u2019t for working so much, I\u2019m sure I would\u2019ve graduated on time for my degree. We need a fully-funded SUNY so people like me can graduate on time and not have to worry about going to grad school because of all the private loans they\u2019ve already taken out. I\u2019m walking away from undergraduate degree with almost $100,000 worth of student debt. And that\u2019s from a state school. I\u2019ve already started paying those loans off for three years already. That\u2019s another thing I pay for with work, besides car insurance, my car payment, internet, electricity, rent, food, and textbooks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t pay more than $300 a semester in books. If a semester cost me more than 300 bucks in textbooks, I would weigh which books are more valuable and get rid of the other ones. There are also some classes that require fees in order to take them. I took art for three semesters, and that was $200 for each course each time, totaling $600. And that doesn\u2019t even cover materials. It covered studio space and workshop equipment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My biggest challenge as a SUNY student has been finances. I worry more about my finances than I do about passing each class. I know I\u2019m at a major disadvantage in class because I have to work so much more just to make sure that I have a roof over my head while I\u2019m in school, or just to make sure the internet doesn\u2019t cut off so that we can finish our homework. I think if we had a much lower tuition or if there were less hurtles to have to jump through for a student like me, then I might be able to not be in as much debt, and then I would be able to go to grad school without the fear of not just getting rejected, but also of it not being paid for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a Professional Writing major with a minor in Anthropology, and this is my fifth year here at SUNY Cortland. I\u2019m planning to go to grad school after this to study Anthropology and Political Science. Right now, I take out private loans. I think I got the Pell Grant for about a semester, and it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,82,50],"tags":[18,28,101,19,20],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assembly-district-125","category-senate-district-51","category-suny-cortland","tag-job","tag-pell-grant","tag-snap","tag-student-loans","tag-textbooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","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=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":801,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}