As my bio says I
go to St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Located in a small rural
community, St. Lawrence and the other surrounding colleges (Potsdam, SUNY
Canton, Clarkson) are similar to the tan Cheerio-like pieces in Lucky Charms
cereal, easy to pick out and not the best part of the mix as the beautiful
farmland is interrupted by ugly academic buildings. While I can only speak for
my own college, and even that has it's merits, basically what I feel as a
senior about to graduate in less than two weeks isn't nostalgia or
sadness but is instead jaded at the system.
While I was able
to get a lot out of the university academically, graduating with an
English and Government double major (honors in both) and a Peace Studies minor,
in addition to being on the Varsity Nordic Ski Team for all four years, I
believe that the school asks for a lot financially from it's students. With
full tuition pushing $60,000 per year a good majority of students, myself
included, attend the school on scholarship. And I fully recognize that it is
because of the generous donations to scholarship funds that I am even
in attendance at St. Lawrence. Yet despite having received over
$20,000 from the university I am still leaving the school with excessive,
although sadly not abnormal, loans. And on top of the money I received from St.
Lawrence I also applied for other annual scholarships including the Elks and
St. Mary's and received a number of financial awards from high school. And
still in spite of all this the loans remain.
In no way do I
want to sound ungrateful for the opportunities I have been granted or the
financial gifts that I have received. I appreciate that I was able to attend a
prestigious liberal arts college and recognize that I am
exceptionally privileged. And St. Lawrence is certainly not
an anomaly as tuition costs are on the rise for most colleges across the
board. Rather I believe that the price of getting a college degree is becoming
more and more out of reach for a number of families and students.
As someone who
comes from a very middle-class family (my mother was a middle school math
teacher for over thirty years and my father has been a firefighter since
getting out of the Navy in his twenties and has since risen to the rank of
Assistant Chief) my parents have definitely struggled to put three children
through college. I clearly remember sitting on the landing of my stairs
eavesdropping on a conversation between my parents when I was in about first
grade school having to do with the price of college. My dad had suddenly
freaked out about how expensive sending all three of his children to college
would be. He promptly got a second job at Stewart's warehouse loading and
unloading trucks. His schedule at the warehouse had him arriving home around
two or three in the morning and involved him having to get up only a few hours
later to be at the firehouse by eight. He continued to do this job throughout
my middle school days eventually leaving it because of how much time he was
missing with the family.
And my father
wasn't the only one taking on the load of college tuition. Since retiring from
teaching two years ago, my mother got a job at Merrell and continues to
substitute teach and chaperon events at the school to help reduce the
burden college loans for my brothers and I.
And my siblings
and I are of course not immune to work, having all had jobs since we were of
legal working age. I personally spent most of my summers and schools breaks
working the 4AM-12PM shift at Dunkin Donuts. I got prematurely judged by most
customers as incompetent based on my place of employment, probably thinking
that a fast-food restaurant would be my career as they were unaware
of my academic pursuits.
One fun story
about just such ignorance was when a regular customer asked me where I had been
for the past few months, that they hadn't seen me in awhile. I replied that I
had been at college. The look of surprise on their face and then the shock when
I informed them that I attended St. Lawrence ("that's a good
schools!") confirmed for me the judgement most customers, even nice ones,
make about fast-food employees.
While I'm at
college I work at sporting events, babysit, move furniture, do lawn work, and
participate in on-campus experiments ranging from salivating in
test tubes to answering computer questions. On our schools website
(SLUWire) I answered any call for help as long as it was attached to some cash.
Finding the time for this is of course all in addition to a full course load
and a year-round sport.
My point with
this is that even people who have saved and explore
any financial option, no matter how degrading, continue to be plagued
by student loans. In my opinion the cost of higher education is astronomical
and students shouldn't have to give up the opportunity to attend a top college
because of the cost. And as the "Loan Counselling Exit
Survey" that all seniors with loans had to take kindly informed us,
death is the only option for not repaying your loans.
***
I want to be
clear again that I am appreciative of the opportunities that
I have been given and that I acknowledge many students are in worse
situations. But this is the situation of a very average person and represents
the struggle of an average student dealing with student loans.
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