When Karli Hinman enrolled at Stony Brook University in fall 2018, she knew her family couldn’t help her pay to continue her education. And during her first two years of college, she didn’t have much trouble affording her in-state tuition, thanks to financial aid and scholarships.
But during her junior year, the expenses started to add up. Hinman happened to move into an apartment-style dorm on campus that cost her more than her previous residence halls had. As she made progress toward her major, chemistry, and needed fewer courses directly related to that degree, the state grant she relied on covered fewer of her credit hours, leaving her with thousands more dollars to pay.
Hinman took a campus job serving food and working the cash register in a dining hall to help make up the difference. Still, she found herself unable to fully pay what she owed to the university. That meant she couldn’t sign up for courses for the upcoming semester.
She felt stuck.
“I talked to financial aid on campus so many times,” Hinman says. “They’re not all that helpful, but I was just hoping maybe they would reach out to me and let me know that they found something, or there would be a new scholarship listed on the campus website I could apply for, but nothing really turned up.”
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