"For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall"

DeParle, Jason. “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 22 December 2012. Web. 12 February 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In this article they talked about three girls who were friends in high school and were trying to attend a college like normal students. These girls are all very smart and have the ability to go very far in life and they need to "get off the island." There were a lot of mishaps that ruined the experience for the girls. One girl, Bianca was enrolled in community college to be able to stay home and be with her boyfriend but be a student as well. Another, Angelica was heading to Emory University in the fall. Angelica was getting financial aid money from Emory but they said that the income of her mother was higher than it was so she did not get as money for the schools as she should have and ended up having to drop out of school because she was working more than studying so that she could pay off her tuition. The final girl Melissa, was going to Texas State University. She struggled when first going to college because didn't think college was for her but when she learned that it was too late to return the financial aid, she decided that Texas State was the school for her. After many struggles throughout the four years, Melissa is a senior about to graduate and in the end staying at Texas was the right choice regardless of the things that she had to go through. There are happy endings when dealing with the issue of the cost of higher education, like Melissa but there needs to be something done because there are people like Angelica who are $61,000 in debt and will take a very long time to pay back.