Brittany Ballantyne
Equinox Staff
With the price of schooling and other expenses rising, bank accounts and wallets seem to be shrinking. That’s what many Keene State College students are dealing with while enrolled in classes. A great number of students need financial help. Some even pay for their schooling on their own, sending in just enough money to get them by for each semester.
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Former KSC student Dave Berube found his own solution for school payments. Berube is one of many who are taking time off from school to save money. While Berube can no longer pay for school expenses, he has another plan in the works.
“I’d been paying for school, so it’s tough because there’s only so much I could save up, so a lot of it depended on financial aid,” Berube said. He had come to KSC in 2009 as an athletic training major who paid for his school expenses on his own.
Due to the requirements of the major, Berube was not able to get a job while at school. At the time, sophomore athletic training students had to complete 100 hours in the gym assisting athletes each semester. During Berube’s junior year, these requirements have doubled.
Berube did, however, receive help from financial aid.
When asked if he looked into scholarships, Berube replied with a yes and said, “I did initially coming in. There were a lot more available when I was in high school.”
“From what I’ve heard and seen, there are a lot of scholarships out there that go unclaimed, so I’d say definitely search around for that because they can help. Some of them are so obscure that you wouldn’t even think they exist and you could be one of the only people that they apply to,” Berube said.
Although he cannot currently pay the total costs for schooling, Berube has taken a different route towards his future. Berube is now a member of the National Guard.
Berube explained his situation and said, “With the cuts and everything I’ve been getting a lot less and just can’t afford [school] anymore so a couple months before the break I started considering the military.
Right now I’m going to go with the Army Reserves, and the specialty I’m going for is medical specialist because right now I’m an athletic training major so they kind of tie in and the classes that I have to take for the Army will actually tie into that. So there’s a few classes I won’t have to take here which helps me out a lot,” Berube said.
Berube said he would not be able to come back to KSC until the spring semester of 2013.
Financial aid is where Berube would like to see some changes made. While he pointed out that financial aid was helpful in assisting him with payments, he also made a point of issues he had while working with the financial aid office.
“I’ve had problems with the financial aid office with timing and trying to get things done. I got tossed around from here to there, so I would probably just have it more organized,” Berube said.
When asked if he felt his money towards school was worth what he paid for, Berube’s answer was a mixture of yes and no.
“I’d just say explore all your options before you decide to go for good because there’s plenty out there,” Berube advised.
Sophomore Mikaela Harding also pays for some of the costs of being a KSC student.
“I pay for my books and I take out a third of my college tuition and my loans, and then I pay for anything like in my dorm room,” she said, and added that her parents each pay for one third of the cost,“ so we all split it equally three ways.”
Harding said she would not be able to pay for school without financial aid. “I probably could take out all the loans, but I know just because of how the economy and everything is, my mom’s always advised me never to take out all the loans I couldn’t handle,” Harding said.
For more financial help, Harding applied for scholarships in high school. “I think I got like $3,000 from high school but none of those from high school are renewable so I’d have to reapply,” Harding said.
Harding’s scholarships were for being a well-rounded student.
“I was an athlete in three sports at school. I did soccer, basketball, and track, so it was because I was really involved. I did a lot of extracurricular things in high school like science club, Spanish club, just random things like that and I also was involved in the National Honors Society senior year, so through that I did a lot of volunteer work.”
On top of her involvement in school sports and activities, Harding maintained a 3.7 GPA. These scholarships allowed her to be a little more at ease in her first year at KSC.
“I think the ones that I got from high school were definitely worth it and that helped me a lot freshman year, but this year is a big struggle because none of them were renewable, so it was easy to look at what my tuition cost freshman year, but then I certainly didn’t want to transfer after I got into the athletic training program, after I made all the friends. This year’s actually been really difficult just because I don’t have any of the renewable scholarships,” Harding said of the troubles of relying on scholarship money.
Harding also said, “I kind of wish that I applied for a lot of scholarships through Keene State last year for this upcoming year, but I mean granted it’s just a huge pool of people. I wish there were more athletic training scholarships this year, because I know juniors and seniors have a lot of opportunities but sophomore year’s kind of hard to find them.”
Harding also said, “Because my estimated family income is really low, I get the maximum amount of financial aid that you can get, so I mean I guess financial aid and scholarships have helped a lot. Without them honestly I wouldn’t be going here. I’d be commuting to a community school or state school.”
Another frustration Harding deals with is paying an out-of-state fee. “I really wish that there was a proximity rule because I think it’s really unfair that I literally live closer than anyone I know that goes here this year and I’m in a different state,” Harding said. Harding is 40 minutes away from KSC and five minutes from the New Hampshire border.
To help with her school payments, Harding has two jobs at home and two jobs at school. She works at games with the game crew and is a tutor for Geography and Anatomy 1. While her scholarships did help her pay for schooling, the scholarship money did not make a huge difference in comparison to how much the cost of college is.
“I got like one $300 scholarship, and to us it’s a lot sitting on the counter, but compared to what our thousands of dollars are that go to school it’s like pennies,” said Harding.
Harding concluded her thoughts about students stressing over money and said, “I just think it’s hard obviously because schooling is so expensive especially with the way things are in the economy some kids aren’t even getting jobs after they put all this money into their schooling.”
Alicia Ferraiuolo relies heavily on her scholarship in order to stay enrolled as a KSC student. Her $5,000 scholarship is consistent whenever she makes Dean’s List. Ferraiuolo has received Dean’s List for the past two semesters. The requirement is she keeps a GPA above a 3.0, or an A/B average. Ferraiuolo was not even aware she was eligible for this scholarship until it appeared on her statement.
“I found out that since I’m on there as low income, they actually just found me by being a lower income student,” Ferraiuolo said.
“Nine times out of 10 I know I’m going to get this scholarship so that puts me at ease,” said Ferraiuolo, adding that, “It’s definitely beneficial ‘cause I can’t afford to go to college, my parents can’t afford it, the college loans can be pretty scary.”
“I got $5,000 for being a good student, which is what I try to be,” Ferraiuolo said about her accomplishment. Ferraiuolo explained that she felt there should be more scholarships available to students.
“There should be specialized scholarships for students like lower-income students, or single moms, like non-traditional students; there’s a lot of nontraditional students at Keene,” Ferraiuolo said. The financial aid office has been a helpful tool for Ferraiuolo. She uses their assistance very often and spoke of a time last year where she missed filing dates. When she went to the office to fix the issue, the workers in the office were “very helpful.”
“I think that any free money is good money where you’re a college student,” Ferraiuolo said about the pluses of having scholarships and financial aid around as an option.
Ferraiuolo later said, “I really don’t think there should be an end cap of how much money they give, it would be nice if I could go to college for free, but I of course don’t qualify!”
“Being a student is stressful enough as it is,” Ferraiuolo said while she spoke of how much students have to worry about on top of making sure they can pay for lunch, tuition, and other school expenses.
“There are options,” she pointed out. For many KSC students, it’s a matter of being lucky enough to find them.
Brittany Ballantyne can contacted at bballantyne@ksc.mailcruiser.com