blog post 8 Interview

Interview

For my interview I have decided to interview my housemate Jai Sighn.  I have chosen him because he has a unique story that I thought would help add a perspective of the struggles a student goes through while trying to attend college and keeping their finances in check.  Jai attended Brookdale (a community college near our hometown) in order to save money before coming to finish his education at Rutgers.  He is responsible for his own finances because his parents have decided to move back to Ireland so he now takes care of all his financial responsibilities including student loans.  Here are some points from the interview that I found interesting:

Why did you decide to attend Brookdale for your first year of college?

“ I needed to save money so that I would not have to take out too many loans before attending Rutgers and being able to be home where I already had a steady job that payed well was a big factor in this decision.”

Were you able to pay off your college expenses with the money you made during the year you omitted going to Rutgers?

“Not entirely, most of the money I’m using to pay for college has still come from my parents but it did help me keep my loans down so that I won’t have too much debt once I graduate”

Was attending community college a good experience for you?

“It did help financially and I was able to transfer over all my credits so I basically got a year of schooling at an extreme discount, but the experience of it is not the same as Rutgers and I wish I could have attended here for all four years.”

Is it difficult to manage your finances and attend college at the same time?

“It is definitely a distraction and I feel that the time I do spend applying for loans and going to the financial aid office take away from the time I could be spending towards finding a job once I graduate or even just getting a few more hours in the library each semester.”

From this interview I learned that students who have to take out loans to attend college not only have the stress of knowing they are going to be in debt after they graduate, but also have to spend time during the school year working to keep the loans down and applying for new loans to keep them in school.  Having to take out loans essentially ups the difficulty of college as compared to students who only have to focus on their education.