The recession is taking its toll on students. Cabrillo College’s Vice President of Student Services Dennis Bailey-Fougnier reports that financial aid requests by students this year have already broken last year’s amount by more than 1,000, and that last year was a record year. He called it a “huge problem,” explaining that “We have students who are living in their cars, or at the beach, as you would in Santa Cruz.” The problem, he adds, is that many students have worked out ways to get their tuition covered, but they failed to take into account such extras as textbooks, rent, or food, none of which are covered by financial aid.
High unemployment rates make it even more difficult for students to find a job, though the college has set up a “Fast Track to Work” program to assist student searching for jobs. Yet, in the meanwhile, we are seeing a new generation of college students, living in their cars and surviving off of food stamps, in an effort to get themselves an education. With the state budget unresolved as yet, they still may find new hurdles ahead.
