I am a sophomore studying digital design, I hope to get a job in animation. I pay for my tuition through financial aid. I am the first in my family to go to college and it’s a little stressful as I feel there’s a lot of pressure to be better than the people in my family as I’m a first generation. Some of my biggest financial costs have been paying for transportation, food and textbooks which is where I have to spend a lot of the money I earn working. I also have issues with our escalators and elevators often not working.
Posts Tagged ‘transit’
Genesis Ramos, City College of NY
Isaac Johnson, SUNY Purchase
I am a senior studying liberal studies looking to get into business. I pay for my tuition with financial aid, loans and paying out of pocket. I would like to extend the years and money that is allowed to to be received from TAP. For example students who are in college a little longer than the regular 4-5 years aren’t allowed to receive some financial aid. Everything has been a big challenge for me due to the fact that I don’t receive certain financial aid programs and is paying out of pocket while being a full time student athlete. Transportation, food, textbooks all cost a lot of money while I am still paying for my tuition on my own.
Marina Misic, SUNY Purchase
I am a political science major, and after graduation, I look to pursue higher education whether that be a graduate degree or a degree in law. Within my career, I would like to do something revolving around human rights advocacy. I am lucky enough that the Excelsior scholarship as well as a few others helped me receive an education tuition free. I have worked in the retail sector for over 2 years now and I work from 20-40+ hours a week depending on the time of the year and my availability. I have received funds from TAP, I would just like to make it accessible for more students and to cover more of the expenses. My biggest challenge when paying for college was paying the full cost of the tuition outright for my first semester, with the scholarships I was supposed to receive only giving me a refund at the end of the semester. As a commuter, I live at home with my single mother and we both work to pay our rent and afford all of our necessities. Recently the used car I had paid in full, broke down in the middle of the road and it was not salvageable. To make sure I had a reliable means of transportation to school and work, I had to get another used car from a dealership and I now have an additional 230 dollar monthly expense for 6 years. I have dealt with the problem of not having enough class options. Attending a school where the conservatories are the most funded, as a political science major, our program only has 2 full-time faculty, one of whom had taken the spring semester off for a sabbatical. As a result of this, the professors are very limited in what they can teach and none of the classes that were listed in my requirements for U.S. Politics and Law Courses were offered and my professor even brought up her concerns regarding this.The overall lack of accessibility for disabled people regarding the issues with the elevator in the humanities building and various other dormitories are big issues on campus. Another issue I had was that I was walking to class on a cold day and I did not realize that there was ice because my path was not closed off and was covered in snow. The ice caused me to trip and hurt my ankle pretty badly, and after 3 weeks I still have pain in my joint because of it. I really would want a more accessible and better-maintained campus to avoid any other injuries.
Aidan Zafar, City College at NY
I am majoring in linguistics and literacy. I hope to continue work in human services, whether this be through working in education, speech pathology, or research. My tuition is paid solely through federal and state grants. I support my other college expenses by working 20 hours a week. As an independent student, it was a very difficult process to get TAP. There should be much more support on the state’s end for things such as paperwork, since that was the main issue I ran into. It takes 8-12 weeks to review requests for independent students, which means I did not get my aid amount until the very end of the semester. My biggest challenge is knowing that my tuition might not be accounted for every semester. I have trouble affording transportation costs. This is part of the reason I chose so many online classes. At my school, it is such a hassle to get advised. Before my first semester, I waited on zoom for hours to talk to an advisor. Now, trying to get advised for the fall is another hassle. We don’t have designated advisors in my department, just professors who have other things to do besides advise us. I don’t attend many in person classes. But the many broken links of CUNY have made the sites hard to navigate sometimes.
Steven Espinoza, Hunter College
I’m a political Science major at Hunter graduating this semester. I paid for my higher education through FAFSA. I’d want TAP to be more proactive in notifying students to file, or even of its existence. I feel like there are students are unaware of TAP. One of my biggest issues is transportation costs. I didn’t have enough money to pay for a swipe and the train was coming, so instead of refilling my card I jumped the turnstile. Cops pulled to the side and gave me a ticket instead of a warning, which was so frustrating because it was hard to pay that ticket off. I almost never paid for a textbook or book in college just because some of the prices were outrageously high. I always relied on student networking (group chats, classroom) to share the textbook/book with me. It’s frustrating to see that professors are prevented from sharing the textbook for free for their students. Honestly, the worst experience at Hunter is the support system. It’s so bureaucratic and burdensome, I can’t speak with an adviser without having to send an email or make a virtual appointment. I’ve never seen my advisor or talked to my advisor, until my final semester. These offices are not welcoming to students and reminisce the same vibe as a DMV. There’s also issues with the infrastructure is terrible, I was constantly reminded of it every where I walked in Hunter. It really feeds into the stigma of public schools. The elevators are consistently useless, it’s honestly faster to take the stairs.
Guadalupe Conde, Purchase College
I am a junior at Purchase College studying communications and thinking about minoring in film. I want to work in the entertainment industry, specifically the film industry. Financial Aid covers all my tuition and I usually have an easy job getting TAP, although I would like for the award size to be a bit higher. I am the first in my family to go to college and I had to figure out by myself how to fill out FAFSA and all the intricacies of college that no one in my family understood or had gone through. A very confusing and sort of solitary journey. Since I am a commuter, my biggest costs related to college been the fact that while my tuition is covered, my classes get in the way of time I could be working more time in order to cover more than just my transportation and food costs. Transferring from community college, I got used to there being a range of classes so that I could work the classes around my busy work schedule. At Purchase, I noticed that there were a smaller range of classes and I had to work my job schedule to my classes which has affected my finances, even more so now that there’s an increase in prices. It’s hard working an unpaid internship around my classes and work schedule causing an increasing amount of stress.
Amirah Alwagih, City College of NY
I’m a psychology major. I’m a junior here at City College, and I think CUNY should be free because cost of living in New York City is notorious for being so high, and between that, tuition, and MTA fares, there’s not really space for you to use that money for anything that you need or anything for you to move around financially, and it’s becoming really depressing, people are moving out of New York City and people are not enjoying New York City and hustle culture as toxic as it is.
Justin Yulo, City College of NY
I’m student here at City College New York and I think I can benefit from a free CUNY and more importantly other students can benefit from a free CUNY because the cost of going to university here, while CUNY is an affordable university, it is still pretty expensive for some, especially low income families. In my case I still have to take out student loans, in the 10,000s attending here, and even right now I still have to take a part time job just to pay for some of the expenses like the transport and travel with my metrocard and overall I think a free CUNY builds an important part of our society which is the next generation coming up and learning in such a prestigious university that boosts communities.
Sadia, Borough of Manhattan Community College
I am an international student at BMCC so I pay a lot of money for school. I remember a few days back at Chambers Street and BMCC, the train tracks caught fire and we were struggling to get out of the train station. The OMNY TAP wasn’t working to get in another station, and I didn’t have anymore money on my card. Unreliable trains have caused me to be late so many times. The A train sometimes delays from Broadway Junction. There have been more than a few times that I was 10 minutes late to my class because of the subway. A previous semester, I had 4 classes. Four days a week coming back and forth is about 20 dollars a week. And I think that is too much. I think they should make it more affordable for people who need help, so that they can get to class.
Mohammad Haikel, College of Staten Island
I am a student at College of Staten Island. Public transportation has caused me to be late a couple times where I needed to take the bus to school and I was late to a final. And it’s the same situation when I’m going to work. Free or reduced price transit would save the stress on myself and other students in general.