I am a full time student at SUNY Cortland. I am a junior majoring in Business Economics with a minor in Spanish. I am from the West side Bronx, NY. I come from a single-parent family of 5 which includes my mother, and 3 younger siblings. When applying for college, I was determined to leave my community which I had been born and raised in order to have new experiences and be exposed to more opportunities. I primarily applied to SUNY and CUNY schools because the costs of a private education would have been too large of a financial burden on my family. The COVID-19 pandemic made my college decision process a lot more difficult due to the fact that it prevented me from visiting more schools in person. Therefore, I was a little skeptical about making the decision to accept SUNY Cortland’s offer at first. However, I was later informed that I had been accepted into the Educational Opportunity Program. This gigantic push and help from the EOP, combined with the help of Pell and TAP grants, have allowed me to have an opportunity at higher education. Although I am very grateful for all the help I have received, I still take out student loans to cover the remains of my college expenses. Although I am hard working and confident that if all goes wrong I will still be able to find a job with my major on my own, I am still concerned sometimes about having to job hunt after graduation and not having enough resources. I believe that a higher education should be made more financially attainable and student debt should be forgiven at least to some extent as well.