Abi Hilden, executive editor

In addition to a full class schedule of 17 credits, I work four jobs and participate in theater productions as much as possible due to my major’s requirements. I attend every event I can on campus, somehow manage to pull decent grades, squeeze in as much fun as I can and do all of this on around six hours of sleep a night — but sure, I have time to listen to you complain about how your parents won’t pay for you to DoorDash again tonight because they already pay for your meal plan!

I am so tired of hearing about how “My parents pay for my education but it sucks!” Genuinely, cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it! I come from a really poor upbringing, so the fact that I am even able to get a college education is a miracle. With the recent delays in the FAFSA and the myriad of issues that have come with that system changing this year, there was a point in time that I wasn’t sure that I would be able to come back for the fall semester because without my financial aid I cannot go to school.

And I know for a fact that I am not alone in this. According to a press release from the National Center for Education Statistics, 40% of undergraduates in the U.S. received the Federal Pell Grant in the 2019-20 academic year. They also reported that 72% of undergraduates received some type of financial aid in that year. That is almost three out of every four students who received some type of financial assistance in order to access an education. I know that not everyone who receives financial aid wouldn’t be able to afford school without it, but there are more people than you think who are in that situation.

The thing that really gets me about the people who complain about having all of their expenses covered is the entitlement that they have regarding money. They are often the people who will be the first to ask you to pay them back for something they bought for you. They are often the first to try to work as much as possible so they have money to spend frivolously because their parents cut off their credit card.

What I would love is if these people could just pause for a minute and think about the financial situations of the people around them. Just take a moment to consider that your words have an impact on the people you complain to and they hurt. When I listen to my classmates and peers talking about how their parents fully financially support them, I really struggle to understand how they can see it as a negative. I would give almost anything to have someone cover my expenses and make my life 100 times less complicated and you have the audacity to treat it like it’s a bad thing? Make it make sense.

Don’t get me wrong, we all have our problems and I have no interest in playing the Oppression Olympics because nobody wins in that scenario. Money doesn’t automatically equate to the solution to all of your problems. It does, however, have a tendency to make your life a bit less stressful. So, if you’re around someone like me — who is essentially working themself to death to just barely scrape by — maybe just keep your dislike of getting things taken care of financially to yourself. Thanks in advance on behalf of me and all the other poor college students that I know.