Attending a Community College is a great option for me specifically since it’s located in my county and it does not cost nearly as much as a State school, such as Rowan University. Unfortunately, there are financial consequences for students attending school more than half time.
My main concern is that currently I am in the Nursing Program at GCC and in order to me to succeed I cannot work full time; my time is dedicated
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Attending a Community College is a great option for me specifically since it’s located in my county and it does not cost nearly as much as a State school, such as Rowan University. Unfortunately, there are financial consequences for students attending school more than half time.
My main concern is that currently I am in the Nursing Program at GCC and in order to me to succeed I cannot work full time; my time is dedicated to my education. Even though I live with my family, I am still a "broke college student." I can’t pay my bills and I can’t afford health insurance.
Since the Nursing Program is challenging it requires many countless hours of studying, assignments, and homework to be completed in addition to attending class and clinical hours for the program. These countless hours impose on my full time job. Because of the importance of my education I now work part time and make less for the same amount of bills.
I contacted NJ unemployment and according to the representative it’s my "choice" to go to school and “the student is cutting their hours-not the employer" therefore I was told that I am not eligible to collect partial unemployment. Personally, this is very upsetting, unfair, and gravely stressful because in order to get anywhere you have to have an education. Unfortunately, there are consequences of going to school since I can't work full time and I am not able to collect partial unemployment. There are people in our country collecting full unemployment and they don’t want to work. I want to educate myself, but in order to do so there’s always a catch.
I am striving for my education and I feel like I'm being punished. I don't have money saved up and my family is unable to help me pay my monthly bills of approximately $1000 per month. Before I began the program I was working full time and I was living paycheck to paycheck. Now I'm trying to do something to better myself and I can’t even afford to pay my bills now. Please consider changing the regulations for unemployment eligibility specifically for education purposes due to situations like mine. I have nobody to help me financially and I am a 28 year old single woman with no children.
Our system is biased against single individuals because they expect us to have more take home pay. This is not a true fact, because like everyone else we have bills. Singles such as me, do not have someone else to help us survive financially. If anything I feel we’re much stronger than people who decided to have families because we are self reliant and we don’t expect handouts. Singles make educated choices and just because I decided I don’t want to settle down and have children doesn’t make me any less financially stressed.
Another important issue is health insurance: I'm over the limit to be covered under my parent’s plan (I am 28 years old), therefore I have no health insurance. I can't even buy a plan individually since it's so expensive and I can't get it through my now part time job because I work less than 30 hours a week. In the event I get sick or an accident occurs, I pay out of my pocket, which is basically goes to gas and food! The only plan the school offers is "accidental insurance," so if I get sick due to an illness I’m on my own (again). Consider this, if I get sick, where should I go for care that won't cost me my soul or put me at a negative number in my bank account? There are new options in place for health care, however it doesn't help me at all since I'm past the cut off and I'm considered to be on my own.
Creating a health insurance plan specifically for college students (with no age limit) as long as they are actively attending college would be an important factor for me and for so many others like me in my situation. The plan should not be limited such as “accidental insurance” because it’s of no value to me when I am ill.
In this society's day and age-there is no way for me to live on my own and support myself without an education. Education is imperative, but it comes with grave consequences.
If you have any questions or input please feel free to contact me.
The financially stress and uninsured college student,
Laura
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