I’m in my first year of college and I’m BROKE. I have $4.23 to my name after giving every single dollar from my job to my college for my tuition. I couldn’t sign up for classes until I paid my tuition so, I made the hard choice to just give my college every dollar in my account. I’m in my dorm crying because our dining hall is closed because it flooded and I don’t have any money to eat. I’m trying to thug it out because I want to do something meaningful with my life, I wanna be the first person in my family to graduate, and I wanna make my grandma who couldn’t even get a middle school education thanks to Jim Crow proud but I’m just so frustrated. Not even having enough money for a meal is so humiliating and scary.
Meanwhile, my white, Trump supporting, nightmare of a roommate just told me to “ask my parents”. She thinks I’m “over exaggerating” and that it’s “not that serious”. Mind you, she begged me to tell her what’s wrong, I didn’t tell her cause we aren’t friends, we just live together. Meanwhile, her parents paid all her tuition upfront. Poverty is such a hard cycle to break, and most black people were put there because of racism. Im trying to break the cycle while going to college. My parents have my younger siblings to raise and I said if I went to college, I’d pay it all on my own, that was the deal. I don’t have the luxury to ask my parents for money, and it’s so frustrating to have someone so ignorant in your ear telling you that. When I tried to explain this to her (not because I thought she’d listen, but because I was angry), she just mumbled under her breath
“Black people and their excuses”
So not only am I broke, can’t feed myself today, and doing exam prep, I also have to avoid being the angry black woman because my roommate is ignorant. Now I’m crying and angry, just a hot mess.
I’m sorry this is so sporadic and or confusing, I’m writing through tears and anger. I’m going to get through this regardless but it’s just hard.
Edit: Hi everyone! Thanks for the support, I didn’t expect much engagement or anything, especially because I wrote this in pure frustration lol. I just wanted to clear a few things up!
1.) I do have a job! It was thanks to this job I was able to pay my fall 26’ semester tuition! I did take off two weeks for exams, as I have two classes that a 70% on the final is needed to pass the class.
2.) I did have some scholarship money! It paid for my first year and I’m so grateful, I’m still applying to more scholarships, it’s just really competitive.
3.) To everyone asking for my cashapp, Venmo, etc, thank you all! I will leave it here, BUT I’m going to take it down eventually. I hate the idea of feeling like I’m begging for money. This post was mainly to express frustration because I was so frustrated that my face was red. So, I’ll keep this part up for maybe a day before taking it off. I appreciate it, but I understand that times are tough for EVERYONE right now, I’ll be good for food once they fix the flooding so I just don’t feel right keeping it up permanently.
Again, thanks for the support!
Edit (2): Hi, I’ve gotten lots of support, and I’ve gotten lots of donations, maybe even too much. I can’t stress this enough, THANK YOU! I have removed my cashapp because I don’t wanna take anymore money, especially when people have already shown me this much kindness. Thank you all, again! This means so very much to me!