State budget cuts have forced many Bay Area students to pay more for college. Youth Radio’s Denise Tejada came to the United States 12 years ago in search of a progressive education, but now is questioning the “American dream.”
I’m thinking of dropping out of college. I know that in order to get a well paying job, I need a good education. But with state budget cuts looming, I wonder if it’s possible. My tuition keeps rising and lack of funding means the courses I need to graduate aren’t as available. So I’m paying more for school and it’s taking longer for me to graduate. Last year I spent eight hundred dollars per semester. Now I need a thousand to cover all the expenses.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed in my home country...El Salvador. We didn’t have fancy classrooms and our books were outdated, but our teachers were like family. They came to our homes for tutoring and kept our parents updated on our progress. Here, I often sit in classrooms where teachers are so overwhelmed by their class size, that I go completely unnoticed.
My parents brought me to this country twelve years ago for a top-rate education. And now a lot of the resources that help me compete on a level-playing field are being cut, like tutoring, electives, and teacher office hours.
My struggles with school are even getting in the way of my social life. I’m only nineteen. While most of my wealthier friends go out to clubs and restaurants, I’m stuck at home worrying about how I’ll help my parents pay next month’s bills...phone, cable and car payments, on top of the school tuition I pay myself.
My brother and I want to provide our parents with the comfort they’ve given us, but it’s becoming harder to get the college degree that leads to a high-paying job.
I plan to finish this school year, but if I continue, I’ll probably be paying more for what could be an inferior education. This isn’t the American dream my family envisioned. I just want my parents to experience the joy of watching their daughter graduate from college— a dream they thought could come true. And now they’re afraid it’s vanishing.
