jumping

No wonder the world is full of un-educated, ignorant idiots!

If you are a working adult, out on your own, paying your own rent, bills, etc. and you are under the age of 24, there is absolutely no way that you can comfortably attend a university to better yourself in life and in your career. They make it so damn hard! It's damn near impossible!

Let's assume you are me: on your own financially, working full time, only 22 and trying to finish your degree in the evening at the local University. You are able to pay the outstanding tuition by the due date and you assume that will be your biggest expense...WRONG!

You now have to buy books. Books and books and more books. $200 for three books and you still have four more classes to buy for. You drop two classes because you can't afford the books. You still have to buy for two more classes - books totaling $160. You don't have $160 to spend on textbooks. You have bills, remember.

Then you think that maybe you can get financial aid. But you are turned down because your not 24 years old, so to the university, you are not considered independent yet. You are moving in the midst of this all and experiencing stress like never before.

Then two of your three remaining classes are threatened to be cancelled due to lack of students in the class section. That would leave you with one class, which would end up costing $154 a unit plus books. Mind you, you've already paid the full tuition, which means that you will not receive a full refund from the classes that are cancelled. According to university policy, you are only eligible for 60% of what you paid. And you cannot return the textbooks you bought for those cancelled classes either. This is also univesity policy.

Then you are told, by your advisor, that you will run out of night classes to take within the next two quarters. Your advisor 'advises' you to take some day classes. You inform her that you work during the day and you must keep working in order to pay the bills, to pay for school. Day classes are out of the question. She then suggests you change your major so you can complete your degree in the evening. You remind her that you are a senior and changing your major would push your graduation date back at least two years. She shakes her head.

So you comprehend withdrawing from this quarter all together. You could keep the books, enroll for the exact same classes next quarter and hope they dont get cancelled again. You also comprehend enrolling for an online school (expensive as they can be) just so you don't have to deal with "university policy" anymore)

"Do they really want me to suceed?" You ask, "Because it seems like they try to make it as hard as possible to get yourself through school. "

~~

Don't condemn this generation for their "lack" of college aspirations. In this area, people my age have the cards stacked against us, so do something to help, not hinder. You would think that they'd want to make it easy, seeing how we strive to better ourselves. But instead, they are content to let us fail.