I wish that one day, I can get my mother and myself out of this seemingly never ending poverty. It’s so difficult, and being at this boarding school for the past 4 years has made me forget about how difficult it really is. I’m living a somewhat privileged life in terms of where I go to school and where I live but, back home my mother is struggling. She’s worked so hard to take care of me while barely getting by. Bills, food, and rent make up pretty much as much as she gets in her pay-check. I want to give back, and to do that I have to take advantage of what she’s done for me so I can do the same for her, so neither of us have to worry about where we will live or where our next meal will come from or if we’ll have working appliances.
My next step towards achieving this is University. A venture that again, will take a huge investment that will hopefully but not definitely, pay off. My top choice for University was NYU and specifically one of the most selective institutes within the school. Having heard that I’d been accepted into both the school and the specific program I was ecstatic and so was my Mother. I had though “This is it.” “Finally, all of that hard-work has payed off.” The Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music is the only school of its kind and it would’ve set me up for extreme success for the future considering all of the connections and job opportunities available to all graduating students. A few weeks after hearing I was one of the 60 kids accepted into this school I was met with an obstacle that I hadn’t put much consideration too in midst of all of the excitement – paying for this venture. Per year NYU costs about 70,000$ to attend, one of the highest in the country – I obviously wasn’t expecting a full ride but, was also hoping that the offered aid wouldn’t leave me in such unmanageable debt that I’d be better off not attending at all.
Today I cried. A lot. For the first time in god knows how long. I had received news that part of my financial aid application was incomplete and that the deadline for it had passed making me completely ineligible for any sort of institutional aid. Afterall, this was my dream, a school whose curriculum is completely based around the music business and entrepreneurship, this would set me up to be a successful entrepreneur/artist within the industry. Now unattainable unless I want to leave the school 280,000$ in debt (that is if i’d even receive a loan that large.) Now what once seemed so close, is now so far away.
All the time I see kids around me ordering food every day, constantly ordering random unnecessary gadgets off amazon and I often times wish that I had the means to do that. They’ve just got it so easy, life has been lined up for them.
How does this all tie back into the theme of this unit? The fact that so many of my peers, students that attend this school – that I interact with everyday, won’t have this problem and have the financial privilege to go on and pursue all of their academic desires and success. For me, it seems as if one of the only ways to get my mother and myself out of this situation is a higher education. But, how can I make the money to do that if I can’t afford the means to get it in the first place. Thus, trapping myself and so many other individuals in my situation into a sort of “loop”. Not having the means to get to where we want to go and therefore not going. The state of financial inequality makes it much more difficult for poverty stricken individuals to break out of it and easier for the more privileged to remain and excel. Until some major changes are made in this country there will always be a large wealth gap – and I’m constantly being reminded of/taunted by this harsh reality everyday.
Putney Mediates the Media 