This Isn't the Yale I Was Promised

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When I told my parents I’d be leaving them to go to a school across the country, I made one promise: they would not have to go into debt to cover my education. Yale would take care of that. A year has passed, my freshman year is coming to an end and I don’t know if I can keep this promise for the next three years. I am obligated to meet the student income and summer contribution requirements each year, despite being on “full financial aid.” I am a prospective pre-med biomedical and anthropology major, an athlete, and an activist. There is no room for me to take a job, get good grades and keep my mental health. And yet, I can not ask my parents, who are immigrant  farmworkers, to spend thousands of dollars a year on me. Me, their child who was the first to “make it.” Yale needs to deliver for parents like mine who hoped to give their children the college experience they never had.