The Educational Opportunity Program (EOP)

Growing up in a lower class family my mother was barely able to pay the bills. My father left my mother when I was fourteen. So she was forced to provide for my siblings and me on her school bus driver salary. My mother had the best health benefits a job provides, her children never went without healthcare. I will say the majority of lower class family’s do not have this luxury, it depends on the job. My siblings and I have also had a quality education because my mother researched the school districts in our area before deciding where to enroll her kids. The lower class can get a quality education we just have to be determined to work hard. In order to get a college education as a lower class citizen I have to work a full time job while going to school full time. I have a wonderful role model my mother got her bachelor’s degree while working to full time jobs one graveyard and one during the day while going to school full time. If she can do that then I can’t disappoint her all she’s ever wanted for her children was a better life. The government provides financial aid, but it isn’t enough to live on while going to school. I have to utilize every free moment I have to complete my assignments, because of that I don’t have any free time. College is my only shot at moving up the class ladder of America.

The article “Motivating Firs-Generation Students For Academic Success and College Completion” by Tanjula Petty describes the additional challenges first generation students have to overcome while attending college. A well-heeled diversity and world of opportunities are a few of the positive outcomes of attending college. According to Tanjula Petty (2014), “Yet, the most cited and widely used definition for first- generation students is someone whose parents has not completed a college degree”. Students whose parents did not acquire a college degree, have a lack of support at home. Their family members are not equipped to provide information required for college difficulties students may have. They lack knowledge and resources that students that students with college-educated parents have. The article states that these students are less psychologically prepared for college. Many low-income families do not understand the benefits of graduating from college. First generation students spend more time working and less time studying unlike their classmates. (Petty 2014) Coming from low-income families, many of these students have to divide their time between college and working. Leading students to prioritize money before school. Many work full time while going to school. Working more hours than studying can potentially harm students ' success.

During my time here at Suffolk County Community I faced many adversities in my personal life. These hardships caused a dent in my education. I went from being a full-time student who not ever worked a day in her life to a full-time employer, working at times sixteen hours a day to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. Through all the privations I tried to crowd time in for a higher education, earning a small paycheck was more imperative to me then college, as I needed the money more than I needed the education. A few different times I had to withdraw from a class and take semesters

My mother worked four jobs at once to make financial ends meet, while always stressing the importance of education and financial independence to my brother and myself. My grandmother only achieved a second grade education due to the financial constraints on her family at a young age, but still in the end managed to make certain that of her children and grandchildren had what was needed to flourish and become successful, educated members of the community. The tenacity and history of these two women I still carry with me today. Their struggles have inspired to me to only want more from life, but also serve as a positive role model for the younger members of my community. I observed from other family members how an education can open a multitude of doors and opportunities. I want to make the biggest and most significant on my community and on my family as possible, and the only foreseeable path is to achieve a college education to gain the necessary skills, knowledge and connections needed to flourish and implement positive

Everyone has a different story and background, but we all hold similar aspirations for the future. We can either let our background draw us into an inescapable black hole or use it to thrive over any obstacle. For many minority students as myself, the shot at college is the only chance we truly get to overcome our situations. It’s true that not everyone needs a college education to succeed, but the truth is not everyone has the resources to make something of themselves without the valuable education which a renowned institution like the University of Illinois has to offer. I come from a low-income family which had their share of struggles from an early age, which impacted our lives greatly. My decision on what major I possibly might be interested in pursuing might not have been directly linked with my family history, but the overall aspiration of attending college has. At the age of eight I faced the sad reality that I would be left without a father figure. My dad would be incarcerated for the next seven years for dealing drugs and at the end of his sentence he would be deported back to Mexico. This incident left a heartbroken family and a mother to fend for four kids all by herself. This overall incident was a wake-up call to better myself and not let myself be defined by the mistakes, which my father committed. I saw the struggles, which my mother had to endure.My mother is one of the most

Education is the main goal of college. I had always considered myself a person dedicated to the pursuit of more knowledge and a better education. My mother, being a teacher, had instilled these values in me. When I was in elementary, I tested into a gifted center and from there I tested into selective enrollment college prep. The obvious next step seemed to be college. Looking the scholarship given to me, it just didn’t seem to add up. I had scored a 32 on the ACT but my scholarship was barely covering half of my expenses. But I knew if a just gave up, the meant giving up on everything that I believe in. By pursing college I was able to be challenged, pursue subjects which interested me and discover new pathways that I was interested such as African American studies. Without taking that chance, I may have never received that knowledge.

I am a first-generation college student. My parents never got passed high school. They were both faced with hardship and had no choice but to get a job to deal with the responsibilities of home. My dad left India at the age of 16 to build a better life for himself and my mom in America. In my household, education has always been a priority. Since my parents have felt firsthand how life is like without a degree, they made it their mission to ingrain in us a value for education like no other. However, there have been many situations in which I have found myself lost and looking for answers about college. Sadly, by being a first-generation student, my parents could not help me. Not only could they not help me, but being the first to attend college

Deborah Caldwell shares her emotional experiences with the college education system in her essay “My Son Was Accepted to a College He Can’t Afford. Now What?” that I hope will not reflect my own. I am a High School Senior who is planning to attend college in the upcoming term, going through the selection process just as Caldwell describes. Just like my mother, She takes pride in the achievements of her children and is proud they are accepted to prestigious schools for all their hard work. I see my family through her experiences as the year unfolds and I apply for federal aid. Just like many other middle class families, we are neither rich enough to afford university tuition without aid nor poor enough to qualify for government assistance programs.

Everybody loves a good success story. When the underdog, usually a lower class high school age student, defies the odds and comes out on top, beating his circumstances to get where nobody thinks he should go, everyone goes crazy for it. So crazy that Hollywood gets in on the act, with movie productions such as The Blind Side, Life of A King, and Slum Dog Millionaire. Sadly, these stories are not commonplace, in fact, they are very few and far between. More often than not, students from lower class families struggle to get by, as a result putting school to the back burner. Less than 75% of students in lower income households graduate high school, and even fewer go onto college (http://nces.ed.gov). From this group, excuses began to come out, the main reason underlies them all; they have become a product of their circumstance. The position they were in restrained them, forcing only one path, a

When I first started school at Hillsborough Community College, I worked two part-time jobs to pay tuition while maintaining a full time course load. As graduation approached I knew that the decision to further my education would require more time and funds. While short on money, I still decided to transfer from Hillsborough Community College to the University of South Florida to further my education in Social Work with a minor in Public Health. I personally believe that education is an investment in yourself that is certainly worthwhile. To be able to receive the Eugene and Mary Lou Powell Veteran Success Last Mile Scholarship would make a significant impact on my college experience. Receiving this scholarship would relieve a huge financial

“Kids who are the first in their families to brave the world of higher education come on campus with little academic know-how and are much more likely than their peers to drop out before graduation” (1). Many people believe that school isn’t for everyone, and whoever goes is privileged for doing so. Countless people in the world today do not attend college, and this is mainly due to an influence of those in their family. Perhaps they are unsupportive of higher education, their parents and family members may view their entry into college as a break in the family system rather than a continuation of their schooling and higher learning. Most of the first-generation students decide to apply to colleges, because they aspire to jobs which require degrees. However, unlike some students whose parents have earned a degree, they often seek out college to bring honor to their families, and to ensure they make a decent amount of money for their future.

As a young child, I learned that education would be beneficial to not only myself but also all humankind. Growing up in a Northeast Florida housing project my father and mother did the best they could to raise nine children. My father worked seven days a week in the service industry as a waiter and bartender while my mother worked as a domestic employee in the homes of more affluent people in the south. My father had an eleventh grade education and my mother had not passed the tenth grade before she bore her first child. Neither parent completed high school but they had dreams of their children far exceeding their educational accomplishments. I was child eight of the nine and I knew early on that I did not want to live

Students from all over the United States are told all through their life that they need to attend college if they ever want to be successful, however, this is far from the truth. Often schools are culprits for driving students to attend money driven colleges, in other cases it is family. While schools all too often make the push on students to continue their schooling, parents can cause the same situation, as they may not have a degree and be working a low-paying factory job. Now kids already don’t want to be like their parents when they get older, so seeing them suffer in poverty or barely above the poverty line can cause some dissatisfaction, further seeking a degree to live a life that they never got. What many

It is nice to know you. I totally agree with you that school is the best place to people invest time and money for their future. It will be really hard for students when they have a finance problem and cannot afford their school. It will be sad if the students must be drop out because they cannot afford their tuition fee. EOPS also is a program that helps student with their financial. It is a program to help many students, especially low income student. I have been in this program for almost three year and I am feel very lucky. Every semester, they provide almost all of school supplier to their student. They also have book services. Nowadays, the book is super expensive, so this program is very helpful. The student will not have to

I had dreams and the only way I knew how to live out my dreams was through education. Although I fell into temptation as an adolescent, I never stopped attending school. During the end of my freshman year I found out I was having a baby girl. I knew I had to succeed more than ever, just to prove to her there is a way out of poverty. I had very little to offer her, so I was a single mother on welfare. I had many sleepless nights and moments that I just wanted to give up, but I pulled through and was able to attend East