High school for most people consists of parents being the prominent caregivers. Paying for all of the essentials, such as toothpaste, food, clothing, gas for your car, insurance etc. For others it might be the complete opposite, whereas at a very young age, a kid may be expected to “adult” a lot earlier than most. College is a completely different ballgame when it comes to adulting. In high school, most kids go about having endless pictures of homework in their camera roll or skipping class, just to finish an assignment that was due that day.
All of this is an easy outlet to pursue when your education is being funded by the government. When it comes to funding for college, not everybody has a chance to enjoy the quintessential college experience to its most extent, due to finances in terms of paying for tuition, classes, textbooks, and supplies. I mean this to its entirety. My dream school was New York University. Taking credentials completely out of the question, it would have been nearly impossible for me to attend the school. When applying for financial aid, I was torn when I discovered that I not only didn’t get approved for the state Pell grant, but I also wouldn’t be receiving any other grant from the state.
Luckily, having a savings account worked out to my advantage, after vowing to myself that every time I got paid through the organization that I worked for, I would put a portion of it into my savings. Not to mention that applying for a loan wasn’t always a direction that I was leaning towards, since unlike a scholarship, you have to pay back every cent plus interests. Which very well can accumulate over time, and often times be a lot more than what you had anticipated.
At this point, with my pride for what I’ve worked so hard for, feeling as if it’s been stripped away from me and put into college courses, I hardly had any room to move around when it came to textbooks. With my parents helping me with the remainder of everything else that I had to take care of, I slowly began to realize how important high school is, and why doing your best should always be considered.
College is that needle that you never want to step on, it’s that contemplation of a situation that you always want to be open minded about. Sure, college isn’t the most important thing in the world, but paying for it can simultaneously be even more of a headache if not thought about plenty of time in advance. There are never universals when talking about the possibilities that a person has for going to college, because anyone can learn, and not only can anyone learn, but there will always be a possibility for someone to get their education. Without any funding from FAFSA, a person might in often times feel defeated, or as if now they must take the back roads to paying for an education, but besides my experience with financial aid, everybody’s situation is different.