The epitome of getting your dreams crushed.

[december_solstice]

Well sort of.

Can you believe there was a time when you could actually WORK your way through college? Now, students are spending the cost of a house in less than 4 years.

College is an investment. One that isn't easy to make if you're poor.

The worst is that overwhelming excitement you feel after finding out you got in -- then realizing you can't even afford the tuition deposit, or any other fee thrown at you that is required to even register for your classes.

My spirit? Crushed. My dreams? In ruins.

Yeah, I'll get over it, sure, eventually I will move along and carve a new path for myself.

But there is something else I've realized. It's all nonsensical. Higher education is a profitable business -- it does NOT have the student's best interest in mind.

Here is my story:

I recently completed my Bachelor's and graduated with a 3.5 GPA. This Spring, I applied for an MFA program, with the same university, and got in! This summer, I took my final 2 credits I needed to graduate and start my MFA program in the Fall.

By the time I was nearly done with my short 7 week summer course, I discovered that I would not qualify for any financial aid. For me to qualify, I would need to take 6 credits or more. Why would I take 6 credits, when I only need 2 to graduate? Why would I waste upwards 10,000 in federal grants, scholarships and student loans, that I simply do not need to spend? Why on earth would I do that? That funding could be applied to another deserving student.

This problem has only presented itself because I wanted to graduate this summer, instead of in the Fall. It was the most logical solution to complete my final credit in the summer, therefore being able to attend graduate school in the Fall. Logical. Common sense, even.

In order to start the MFA program, I needed to first fork out nearly $1500 in a matter of days. They did not offer me a payment plan even when I tried to explain to them-- Hey man, there isn't $1500 lying around under my mattress. Hey man, I'm living in it (rent). Which I can barely pay. I'm just trying to get ahead here. I am a working young person with little to no credit. I can't get a private student loan when I have no cosigner. Nor could I get a personal loan.

When I finally exhausted all of my options, I surrendered to the fate...that I kind of already saw coming.

That wasn't even the nail in the coffin, though.

Can I take a semester off to pay this off?

Admissions requires $500 for a 12 month deferment. BY MONDAY. Let me just go pick money from my money tree out back. Not only do I have to wait an entire school year, but I need to pay a tuition deposit for the f'ing tuition I am not even f'ing paying.

So tell me, does colleges have the student's best interest in mind? Because, excuse my french but, all I smell coming out of this university is bullshit.

Comments

[ringlat.livejournal.com]

But it works if you save money in other ways too. When your pillow goes flat, don't toss it, open it up and combine the insides with a second pillow and sew it back up. Buy whole kernels for popcorn instead of microwave bags, pop it on the stove in a pot. Buy plain cocoa powder and milk instead of Swiss Miss. Heat up drinks using a candle. Get rid of the electric coffee maker, use a hand-mixer (http://img.tradera.net/images/949/211033949_90141cc0-1e16-4e50-8e11-601b55ff05cf.jpg). If you own a house or a balcony, in the wintertime just put your food outside in the cold and unplug your fridge/freezer (food that shouldn't freeze goes inside the house in an icebox like a cooler, using snow or ice taken from outside for the cold).

Make potato chips at home, or use another vegetable that's not even potatoes but is cheaper. Nowadays you can even do stuff like buy phone chargers and flashlights that use "human power" instead of electricity to work, and you can make or buy "sun ovens" that don't use electricity, for the summertime.

Hmm, so maybe after that your electric bill is a little lower? Or maybe you realize that you have some habit-food (like coffee and chips) that's actually sucking away half your money, that you can stop eating or reduce costs on?

Buying tea loose-leaf in bulk is cheaper than in bags. If you learn to sew and repair or make your own clothes, so you can at least turn the old clothes into new ones when something happens to them, they'll last longer and then - Wow! You have a little more money for food sometimes too! If you're really poor, once the fabric of your shoes breaks, re-use the soles and sew new fabric on. If you buy fish that hasn't pre-gutted, you save a little more money. If you get a machine you can even make sausages at home and again you can put "filling" in that makes the meat stretch. If you realize that hearts taste just like normal stew meat after you cook them enough, if you save bones and shrimp shells and whatnot and make soup stock, there you go.

Right now I'm making leather/fabric from fish skin, and thinking about all the times I've eaten fish and didn't know that you could actually use the skin. Maybe it wont go anywhere, but people are selling these fish skins for like ten dollars each on Etsy - I could potentially fix up the skin and sell it for nearly the same cost as actually buying the fish cost in the first place.

I mean, if we were all REALLY poor, we'd be making sandles for ourselves by weaving together grass or free plastic straws we picked up at the mall, and our clothing would from melted plastic bags that we picked up off the street... We'd all have rainwater collection buckets and we'd be picking up pieces of wood out of dumpsters or from forest floors and carving our butter knives and spoons from them. We'd make oilcloth ourselves at home, no one would ever use dryers, and we'd all be turning dog hair into yarn LOL.

I also see "people should have common sense already - you should know not to drink soda with every meal" sorts of comments come up a lot. Anyone who looks around them should realize that most people do not have common sense. People are feeding soda to babies and deep-frying pasta. (If you haven't seen "Big Meets Bigger" I recommend it, it's probably on Youtube.)

I think that people should be able to poison themselves however much they want once they're an adult but there needs to be some sort of regulated system about it. You should be able to buy alcohol, but you have to use a card every time, and when the card racks up too many purchases/visits within a certain time period you then get tested to see if you're an alcoholic.