The Costs And Beyond: Financial Stability in College

Some of the most essential necessities people need in today’s society is financial stability, a reliable mode of transportation, and an adequate living condition especially for a college student. To freshmen students, these expectations may become difficult to acquire and may cause an acute amount of stress. Although there are programs and scholarships to assist in these areas, not all students take advantage of them and will find themselves in a situation where the only option is to drop out of college.

What does it mean to have financial stability in college? For some, the answer may be as simple as, their parents support them throughout their schooling or, they applied for every scholarship in arms reach and financial aid. Others on the other hand did not have, or take, those opportunities, which becomes an immense problem in college. According to CollgeBoard.org public two-year tuition is approximately $3, 440 and a public four-year college is approximately $9, 410 (published tuitions), as a high school graduate, numbers like that may be daunting.

Get quality help now

Sweet V

Verified writer

Proficient in: College Education

4.9 (984)

“ Ok, let me say I’m extremely satisfy with the result while it was a last minute thing. I really enjoy the effort put in. ”

+84 relevant experts are online

Hire writer

When a student jumps into college unprepared for a financial responsibility like that, debt and stress are the only outcome. In 2011 my two sisters dropped out of college due to the stress caused by our lack of funds for their tuition and fees. They worked full time during their attendance in college and couldn’t handle the pressure of a full time employee and student. In addition to having the plight of financial instability during college, your mode of transportation plays a huge role as well.

There are many options when deciding what mode of transportation you want to take to arrive to school, the top three are by car, bus or train. All three feasible yet aren’t cheap. A friend of mine would take a bus to the San Bernardino train station, then a train to Pomona, CA, and again to another bus to his Cal Poly Pomona. He spent just about $450 a quarter for his method of transportation and had minimal sleep since he left early in the morning just to arrive home late into the evening. After a year he purchased a vehicle but was on the edge of dropping out because of the mental and physical stress he constantly dealt with.

Lastly, a student’s living condition is key to a those who strives to do well in college. A place to eat, study, and rest are top priority for your home and on countless occasions, students aren’t fortunate to live like that. For example, my friend began her first year of college in Santa Barbara, California, and she stayed in the dorms for the first year but her couldn’t make ends meet. She would have little money for food, clothes, and toiletries as well as constantly becoming overwhelmed by her roommates whose idea of a study night was more party than study. After moving twice and living with four different house mates, she finally got the hang of the off-campus life, unlike the three previous housemates. One of them returned home because she couldn’t afford living there, the other two dropped out after realizing the stress wasn’t worth the effort. She would say, “At times I would get sick from the stress, gained weight from stress eating and felt self-conscious which only stressed me out more.” Her regret was that she didn’t settle down appropriately and it caused unbearable anxiety which affected her grades. She was able to recover from her hardships, but her previous housemates were not so lucky.

The most difficult aspect of not having enough funds, not having a ride to school, or a place to stay is swallowing that pride and looking for that extra help one may need. With my sisters and my two friends, they all set their goal which was to complete college and used various resources to pay for a majority of their fees but didn’t fix their individual problems in a timely manner. My sisters dropped out and although my two other friends adjusted their situations for the better, it still affected their grades and their mentality towards certain aspects of college that could have been avoided.