My name is Stephanie Almodovar and I am a freshman at CUNY City College. I am currently looking to go into Civil Engineering. Right now, I work as a group leader at a local YMCA and this job allows me to save a little for school. Unfortunately, I do not receive Pell Grants and I do not qualify for the Excelsior Scholarship because my mother’s income is just above the cut off level. Often times I struggle with paying tuition and buying the necessary textbooks for school.

I do not qualify for work-study so most weeks I have to choose between saving money towards school or buying lunch. I usually only eat lunch 2-3 times a week but sometimes that’s too much because buying snacks will deplete my savings and I would not be able to eat for the rest of that week. Thankfully, with the help of outside scholarships, I am now able to pay tuition without worry. However, at any time, that could change. I try my hardest to not let these troubles overcome my college experience but sometimes it all becomes too much. In all honesty, I dream of tuition-free CUNY so that one day I will no longer have to worry about paying for school and just enjoy learning.

I am a first semester freshman at Bronx Community College from The Gambia looking to study International Relations.  I have four children, and my wife and I are both in school and have to work to support our family.  I drive a cab as a way to earn money.  I wouldn’t be able to go to school without the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), the Pell Grant and the ASAP program.

I am planning to go to a four year college and am worried because I won’t have ASAP for my bachelors.  I will continue to get Pell and TAP.  But if NY isn’t giving secure funding for more course offerings, it is unclear if I’ll have the courses available to ensure that I graduate on time.  Since I have a family to support, there is no way I will be able to afford to pay out of pocket if I run out of financial aid. This is why I we must have a Maintenance of Effort from our state government.

I am a freshman studying liberal arts.  I receive TAP and the Pell Grant and I am part of ASAP.  I use Pell to help pay for the bills since I live with my mom.  I would like to go to Brooklyn Institute to be a sonographer.  I think I am going to have to take out loans for my bachelors.  I used to work, but I am taking 17 credits this semester.  I used to work on weekends when I took 12 credits which would be the maximum amount of credits I’d want to take while having a job.  If I didn’t receive financial aid I’d have to take out a loan.

I am a freshman psychology major. I would like to eventually work at a school and work with teenagers or do social work. I receive the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) and the Pell Grant and I am looking for a job to pay for the bus, food and clothes. I didn’t qualify for ASAP because they said I had too many remedial courses. But I had taken those classes in the summer already. When I went to try again to appeal, the spots in ASAP were already filled up. If I was able to get into ASAP I would get my metrocard covered which would be a huge help. I am the first person in my family to go to college. My family and I are from the Dominican Republic. If I didn’t get financial aid I’d have to take out loans. I am trying to work to save money in case there is a semester that I don’t get enough financial aid.

I used to work construction before deciding to go back to school.  Although I had saved up some money before this transition, school tuition is not cheap at all, combined with rent.  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.  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.  I borrow money from my mother for school tuition, and the expensive books.

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’t be enough to subsidize my total educational costs. It may alleviate a bit of the money I borrow from my mother.

I believe an individual such as myself would benefit from SNAP.  It could help me afford food while not adding to my stress and financial burden overall.

My parents pay for my college tuition in two ways. My mother works for a college, so I am eligible for their tuition exchange program. This covers a little more than half of my tuition per year. I also have scholarships but they remain unused because my school does not accept both the tuition exchange and the scholarship at once. The remainder of tuition comes from my parent’s savings. They have been saving small amounts of income since I was born. They also pay for my on campus housing.

The other expenses associated with college such as art supplies, textbooks, transit and food are paid for with my own savings. I work 10 hours a week at the library. I used to work more hours but unfortunately, the school has a limit on how many hours you can work while having an internship. I find that spending money on food, transit, supplies, and textbooks leaves me with little to no money for the other expenses in life. I would love to explore New York more, but the majority of activities require funding that I don’t have. But, getting a college degree is more important at the moment. Thankfully, I won’t have debt from loans after I graduate, but I do plan to pay my parents back. That totals to about $300,000, if not more. So I will have an informal debt on my hands after I graduate. I’m glad that there will not be interest developing because that is A LOT of money that I do not have. 

After losing my father in high school, I didn’t realize I’d have to lean so heavily on my mother for assistance.  No one in my family has been able to achieve a four-year degree yet. That has been my motivation to work hard to make them proud. My mother wisely invested in a savings account for my education, unfortunately the funds only partially cover the costs for the first two years of SUNY Cortland and the costs only seem to be going up.

I work full-time over the summers at an assisted living center and was fortunate enough to secure one of the limited spots in the Work Study Program to put towards the costs of living at Cortland. While it is difficult to keep up with the expense of food, transportation and other unavoidable essentials, I am thankful to have been accepted into work-study because it helps reduce my tuition costs and enables me to have some extra cash during the semester.

As a senior in high school, I was aware of the vast expenses that accompanied a college education.  I was raised in a single parent household, as my father was incarcerated early in my life. My mother, a waitress, did her best to prepare me and my brother for college. Still, I’ve taken out multiple loans in my name, in addition to a Parent Plus loan in my mother’s name. These loans cover tuition and a portion of living expenses, however I pay for the remainder. In addition to being a full-time psychology major with an extensive workload, I work two jobs during the academic year and full-time over the summers to cover cost of living expenses at Cortland.

After I finish my psychology studies here at Cortland, I plan on attending graduate school to study clinical psychology. I love it, why people think the way they do. Everybody deserves the opportunity I’ve gotten, even though it’s been hard. Without education access, our future is much dimmer.