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Alicia Graves was already walking a financial tightrope to afford college when a severe illness https://carolinapaydayloans.org/ led to her losing her merit scholarship, forcing her to drop most of her classes.

“When I lost my merit award, my adviser from my journalism class helped pay for me to take a few terms of only two classes out of her own pocket,” said Graves, a freelance journalist and photographer from Oregon, adding that the stress of managing school finances caused many sleepless nights.

“At times, I had no idea if I’d have enough gas to make it to my classes. I had to watch how much my food cost,” she said. “There was a couple of months where my power was shut off and I had to come up with the funds to get it turned back on.”

Graves, who went on to complete her associate’s degree in 2018 and has plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in the future, is one of the millions of American college students who have had to drop classes or postpone a degree for financial reasons. It took her three years to complete a two-year program.

The high cost of tuition, a generation faced with crushing student loan debt, and a cap on federal borrowing has left many students scrambling to secure any type of funding that will keep them in school, or simply dropping out without a degree.

Financial Barriers Mount for Many College Students

More than 30% of students who start at 4-year colleges haven’t completed their degree after six years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. While 9.4% were still enrolled after six years, nearly 23% had dropped out.

Leaving school entirely, experts say, can be disastrous down the line. College graduates earn more money than non-degree holders and are on better footing to pay off their debts.

Students who leave before completing their degree are “more likely to default on their student loans, and potentially facing future complications when trying to re-enroll and later complete their degree,” said Eleanor Eckerson Peters, assistant director of policy research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Continue reading “What Happens When You Run Out of Money for College (and How You Can Avoid It)”