I have been excited for college ever since I was kid and found out you could go to school to be a librarian. Of course, though my dream job changed over the years, my excitement for college didn't change. But, like anything, reality and life came in and, well, ruined the excitement for me.
The college I applied to was not my first choice; it was actually my only choice because I ended up moving in the middle of my senior year to California. Because of the whole transition, I was not able to apply to college well into March/April of that year. Well, safe to say, almost all of the colleges in Cali were not accepting applications, but I luckily found California Baptist University who has 24-hour admission. The school was fantastic, and I loved everything about it, but the problem was the cost.
I do not come from a wealthy family; in fact, my childhood was rough as my dad was a single parent raising four kids, and he didn't make a lot of money. Which is still true today. My dad and my mom (step-mom) both make enough to provide for both of them and live comfortably, but they're not able to make huge expenses or go on trips or anything like that. Yet, when I did FASFA, they expected my parents to help me pay for college and so the college expected me to receive some help in paying for the tuition. Well, safe to say, that did not happen!
Don't get me wrong- I received grants and scholarships from the school, but I was still expected to pay 10,000 dollars out of pocket! Now, I don't know about you, but there was no way I could cover that! I had applied to scholarships from the get go, but I didn't receive one scholarship that wasn't from the school. Not one... and I applied to at least five a day! Yet nothing, so I had to get a loan. Which was not easy as you'd think because I had to find someone who could co-sign for me since I didn't have credit. So all was well, but then next semester came and again I had to pay another two thousand. I could not afford to get another loan of 10,000, so instead I had to go with getting a loan of about $6,000 and finding another co-signer. I covered the rest out of pocket because by spring semester I had a job and could afford to do that.
However, when the next fall semester came around the same thing happened again! Once again I had to pay $10,000 out of pocket and I just couldn't do it! So I had to withdraw from the school, and it ended up working out because I ended up staying at a different state. But it made me frustrated as I looked at other schools' tuitions.
Honestly, there was hardly one of them I could actually afford without getting another loan. It got me frustrated with the whole system that is college. We need to go to college to get a good job and make enough money, but it is way too expensive to do so! So what do we do then? All I know is that something needs to be changed and soon.
