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Krawczyk with his parents at his high school
graduation in 2023, where he graduated
as valedictorian.
Jason Krawczyk graduated from Portage Central High School in Portage, Michigan as valedictorian of his class of 320. At the end of his high school career, he boasted an impressive 4.93 weighted GPA, an SAT score of 1580, three years of varsity tennis, a state championship in forensic speech, a stint as president of the school environmental club, a busy list of summer internships and TA positions, and multiple years of dual enrollment at the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center — an advanced learning program at the heart of SouthWest Michigan’s community for academic excellence.
He hadn’t been coerced by his family regarding academics, either.
“I have older sisters,” he explains. “And they had gone to college. And I saw that they were in debt because of it. So I think I was conscious of how expensive it was in probably middle school or even before that.” He realized that he could leverage his academic prowess to make up for the money that his family just didn’t have. “ I knew I had to be performing really well if I wanted scholarships,” he states.
It felt like Krawczyk’s lifelong efforts had come to fruition when one day in March 2023, he received an email from Yale University — a long-shot in his eyes, but his years-long dream-school nonetheless.
“I opened the letter, and [there were] these little dancing Bulldogs…And I was like,
‘Oh, my gosh. I got into Yale.’”
As joy quickly filled the table and restaurant — the waiters even brought him a congratulatory cake — a sense of dread also began to creep up on the 18-year-old.
“At first, I was so excited — over the moon. And then I was like…this sucks. I don't want to have to deal with this decision…I have to cover [tuition] myself. My parents can't cover college. If I'm going to college, I'm going to be in debt.”
Junious with her mother after her high school graduation.
Six-hundred miles away in New York City, just a couple days before, Leila Junious had also found herself dealing with a similar dilemma.
Born and raised in the city, Junious was unsure of her post-high school graduation pursuits. Her parents didn’t go to college. None of her three older siblings finished college. She wasn’t pushed in high school to be an “overachiever.” She held a solid 3.5 GPA all throughout, but she never had wild expectations for herself. She had been told most of her life that she just wasn’t cut out for a prestigious university. In fact, her guidance counselor had explicitly told her that a prestigious university was not in her range of possibility.
So, she decided to take a break from academia. “I took three years off. I did absolutely nothing. Because … I was confused on what I really wanted to do. Because one minute I wanted to be an English teacher... [But then] I was like, do I want to be a writer? Do I want to work in law?”
It was around the beginning of COVID when she stumbled across a YouTube video about college applications that would lead her to take that shot in the dark for a higher education. “He was like, ‘If you are the type of person that wants to go to college [but] wasn't feeling it, right now is the time to get your degree.’ He said it can be a degree in anything as long as you get your foot in the door.”
She learned about transfer programs from community colleges, something that she hadn’t been told about in her high school years.
Something clicked in Junious that day. She decided that she was going to apply to a community college, and transfer. She attended Borough of Manhattan Community College, and part-way through her three years there, she applied to 16 universities throughout the U.S.
At the top of the list? New York University.
And so, on March 28, 2023, the decision day for that year’s NYU admits, she received the long-awaited notification that her portal had been updated.
She clicked.
Junious had been accepted to her dream school.
But similar to Krawczyk, she came face-to-face with a gargantuan problem: She was a transfer student looking for aid. NYU doesn’t offer financial aid to transfers. And Junious couldn’t afford the university’s $60,000 tuition.
It’s no question that the cost of higher education has skyrocketed in recent decades. Debates over the validity of lowering these expenses have ravaged political spheres for years. But the sticker prices for America’s best universities continue to rise.
It’s true that these price tags are unbelievable at face value — USC just increased theirs to a whopping $69,904, which then raises to $95,225 when including housing, meal plan, and other fees — but it’s important to note that a majority of students at elite universities receive some form of financial aid, whether that’s through federal loans or direct aid from the university itself. This means that they usually end up paying a fraction of that initial cost.
However, the reality is that even just the image of seeing an eight or a nine in the ten thousandths place is oftentimes enough to affect a student’s desire to even submit an application.
“It's a real problem because students are discouraged from even applying to colleges because they think they're going to have to pay that full price,” says Sandy Baum, a higher education economist and fellow at the Urban Institute.
She explains the reasoning behind these sudden increases, especially regarding the fact that a vast majority of university prices are increasing at a faster rate than that of inflation, “If your professors taught twice as many students, you wouldn't be getting the same education that you're getting. So whereas we can now, you know, produce computers or cars or other things using less labor than we used to use, that's not so easy to do in higher education.”
Baum also says that this rapid increase in tuition is likely due to the inequality in the increase of incomes. She stated that the salaries for higher-earning professions, like university faculty and administrators, are rising at a faster rate than the wages or salaries of middle to lower class workers.
But that isn’t all. “You have many more courses to choose from,...better gym facilities, you have more psychological services, you have more academic support services, then people had a generation ago,” Baum states. She explains that with expectations of students of more modernized equipment and services, the university has to keep up with the demand financially. There’s also insurance, she added, regulated by the Department of Education and other federal and state-level organizations that protect certain attributes like facilities and employees.
She finishes by stating that while a good amount of upgrades can usually be justified — like more additions to the student health center or more hires in the biology department — there are some that are rather arbitrary that are typically just implemented to adhere to university-specific expectations, like fancier food or a newer football stadium.
But these explanations don’t tend to come across to low and middle-income students, like Michelle Hernandez.
Hernandez at her high school graduation.
Hernandez explains that she came from Colombia at a young age. Her relationship with her dad, who is still in South America, is distant. Her mother had instilled in her during her childhood the importance of education as a family of immigrants, and she understood. “I felt the need to pursue that American Dream that every immigrant family kind of tries to pursue when coming to America,” Hernandez says. She further describes her family’s relationship with education — her mother had earned her computer engineering degree in Colombia, however, after migrating to the U.S., she'd only been able to work at technician-level jobs.
Like Junious, New York University was Hernandez’s dream school. Coming from New Jersey, the Big Apple was where she saw herself pursuing higher education. She even participated in a two-year high school program at NYU, taking classes on their campus. She admitted that the resources from her majority-Hispanic area were not geared towards academic programs and college prep, her mother hadn’t gone through higher education in the U.S., and she had no older siblings to look up to as an example. She had to navigate through the college application process by herself.
While Hernandez applied for early decision, she was deferred to the regular decision, and then was waitlisted. It was after the waitlist ended for the class of 2024 that she was notified.
She had been accepted to her dream school.
As emotions of joy ran high, they were unfortunately short-lived. Hernandez was soon notified that the information regarding her financial aid package had arrived.
“Private schools like NYU tend to allow students under 60 or $70,000-a-year household income to go to NYU for little money. So I was expecting me to be one of those cases. But it turns out, I got zero financial aid. So I [would] be paying almost $80,000 every year,” she states. This price tag was way out of her family’s financial capabilities.
Unfortunately, it’s not just Yale and NYU that subject their accepted students to compete in financial gymnastics.
“When I got [my] financial aid package…, it was pretty clear just sitting down with my parents that USC would not be a possibility…My parents just didn't have the money to put me in school for $150,000 For the next three years,” explains Omar Rashad, a 2022 college graduate who now works as a local government reporter in Fresno, CA.
Rashad comes from a first-generation, middle-class, South Asian immigrant family from the Los Angeles area. He fell in love with writing from a young age, and knew that he wanted to pursue journalism as a career. His older sister had attended a community college before transferring to a larger university, so Rashad had an example already set for him that provided context for a more cost-effective means to seek higher education.
“The one thing I remember about just being a kid, [was] just sort of how we went about thinking about finances and expenses…We were, like day to day, we were very, very keen on making sure that expenses were [spent] on things that we needed,” he explains, further describing how this consciousness of expenses really directed his intentions for college.
Rashad admitted that his application right out of high school wasn’t elite-university caliber, so he decided to first attend El Camino College. However, he said, his sights were always set on the University of Southern California, and he began the transfer application process just two months into his time at El Camino. Armed with a 4.0 and plenty of extracurricular activities, Rashad was able to apply as a transfer to USC during his freshman year of college.
He was at his local library when he got the email regarding his application status to USC.
He had been accepted into his dream school.
Rashad describes the joy that not only he felt, but that his parents and sister felt. “I think it was really validating,” he says. But it also meant a difficult conversation about money, and as he would soon learn after his acceptance, that financial barrier would just be too much to overcome, not that others from the outside wouldn’t overstep in their lackluster advice.
“After my freshman year in community college, I was talking with a news executive. And he told me to my face that he didn't really know what I was doing in community college,” Rashad explains. This comment had come after the aspiring journalist had told all about his experience at the school newspaper and the initiatives he was taking to pursue his career, regardless of the name of the school he was attending.
“I also told him that I had gotten into USC, and I wasn't able to attend just because of…the costs. And literally right after that, he told me that if I was at a prestigious university like USC, he would have offered me an internship,” he finishes.
While the recantations of individual students are heartbreaking, there is oftentimes a family behind these individuals that feel great amounts of frustration and guilt. Simply because of their income level, they are not able to send their children to elite universities, even when their merit proves that they are qualified.
In Jason Krawzcyk’s case, his mother, Karen, painted a picture of when she first realized her youngest child was special. “When [Jason] was really young, we would go and watch the girls play basketball when he was like four years old. And he would tell us how many points the other team needed, and we knew that he was special then,” Karen states. “When he went to [elementary school], they had a program for gifted kids…And he was ranking in the top five percentile of his class when he was taking tests.”
Proud does not even begin to describe the way she feels about her only son. She says that she still gets chills just talking about the way Jason was able to accomplish on his own as a child and teenager. She reiterates Jason’s earlier assessment that he wasn’t ever pressured to behave a certain way regarding higher education. He pursued it on his own.
Similar to Jason’s explanation, Karen explains that her son was first accepted to Kalamazoo College — a local, private, liberal arts school — with a full ride. As the both of them explain, Jason was ready to withdraw his application to Yale knowing that he already had a full scholarship somewhere else close to home. By his accord, it was just better not knowing if he had gotten into Yale, as he knew that he would likely end up at K College. By his logic, before he had been accepted to Yale, just knowing that there was a chance that he would have to turn that offer down due to finances was too much to bear.
“And I said, ‘Don't do that. Because you're never going to know if you really got accepted or not, right? I mean, you're always going to wonder.’ But then when he did get accepted, then he was like, ‘Why did you make me do that?’” Karen states, describing the stress that was immediately introduced to the Krawczyk family during a time that should’ve been purely celebratory, just as Jason had predicted.
For the days following the realization that Yale was not going to offer Jason enough financial aid, Jason began a calling campaign to the school’s financial aid office every day in an attempt to make his case to be allowed more aid. Although his original aid package did provide some money, it would still be $32,000 a year, compared to $5,000 for two years at Kalamazoo College with his scholarship.
And then there was the conversation about loans.
“The financial aid person [at Yale] was like, ‘Your parents should take out loans for you…we cannot do anything for you,’” Jason explains in frustration. He states that after many similarly irritating conversations, he eventually hung up after one final talk and immediately committed to Kalamazoo College.
Krawczyk with his friend/teammate after a forensics tournament.
An important factor that Jason brought up was the discourse surrounding his admittance and how it caused issues not just within his family, but with friends as well. “What I noticed is [that] wealthy people told me I should go to Yale, and not wealthy people told me I should go to Kalamazoo College, consistently,” he says. Similar to Rashad’s experience with outsiders, at one point during his graduation party, he describes how a woman, whom he wasn’t familiar with, condescendingly insinuated that neither Jason nor his family were ambitious enough to take on the necessary financial burdens.
“She was like,… you're going to regret that decision. And, if I had gotten into Yale or if my daughters had gotten into Yale, I would [say] they're going,” Jason explains. He says that this woman continued on by stressing that his parents should take out loans for him, regardless of the situation they were in or willing to take on. Jason continues, “At that point, I was so upset because I was like, ‘These people don't know what they're talking about.’ If I could go to Yale, I'm honestly gonna go to Yale, but it's out of my control.”
Jason continues to iterate that he was not, under any circumstance, going to force his parents to take out tens of thousands of dollars in loans for his education. It was a responsibility that he was not willing to put on the people that had already sacrificed so much to raise him.
But for his mother, there was one underlying feeling she says she experienced throughout this entire ordeal:
“Guilt.”
In Leila Junious’ case, there was a similar sentiment regarding her family’s reaction. Her mother, Linda Horton, explains the initial emotions she felt after learning that her daughter had been accepted to NYU, “I was ecstatic! Because I was like, wow, …she had the capability of doing this. So I was proud that she had [the] initiative to do it.”
But then there was the issue of aid.
Horton states that she expected more leeway or empathy for native New Yorkers from the university, but that none was given. Rather than anger, however, she expressed more frustration and disappointment than anything else. “If a young person is trying to advance themselves,…why wouldn’t you be more adaptive?” she asks.
Horton continues on by explaining the conversation she had with her daughter regarding the decision. The bottom line was, if the school wasn’t willing to adapt to their financial situation, then they weren’t worth their time. If a student is motivated enough to further their education, then they have the ability to do that anywhere, whether or not it has a prestigious namesake. Her final piece of advice for her daughter?
“Do not let this stop you.”
In the end, Horton states that now that Junious could attend college for next to free, a sense of relief encompasses the family. Now her daughter is pursuing higher education, and the family doesn’t have to worry about devastating themselves with loans or payments.
Stories such as these students and their families are difficult to digest. To know that an individual can work for the better part of 18 years (depending on when they choose to attend college), be accepted into the academic institution of their dreams, and be forced to reject the offer because of inadequate financial support from these universities, which are worth billions of dollars each, is difficult to comprehend for those not accustomed to the American higher-education system. But there are ways to combat the incoming financial burden of college early on.
Sandy Baum, higher education economist, states that incoming college students, especially those who are unsure about the aid their families can provide, should always talk to outside experts, whether that be specialists outside the school, or guidance counselors. Parents should try to start any type of college fund for their children as soon as they’re able. Similarly, Baum states that everyone should be filing out financial aid forms, because you never know what you’re going to get. After the class of ‘28 application cycle, she states that aid forms are becoming much easier to understand and fill out. In most cases, she says, “[College] is expensive, but it's not as expensive as people often think it is.”
For Rashad, Hernandez, Junious, and Krawczyk, their stories are about hope, even in the face of having to make difficult decisions at such a young age.
Omar Rashad, 23, is working his dream job covering local politics in Fresno.
Michelle Hernandez, 21, is graduating with her degree in biology from Temple University.
Leila Junious, 26, graduated with her associates degree in writing and literature from Borough of Manhattan Community College, and is now pursuing her journalism degree at Baruch College.
And Jason Krawczyk, 19, soon finishes his first year at Kalamazoo College. Although students at K College do not declare majors and minors until the end of their sophomore year, Krawzcyk intends to pursue some configuration of biochemistry, spanish, and business. Interestingly, Kalamazoo College has a program with Yale that would allow him to study at the Ivy League with the scholarship coverage from K College after he graduates, although the only caveat is that he must study some form of chemistry.
“It's gonna be life changing for him to not be in debt coming out of college,” states Jason’s mom, who is, like most all other parents from this story, forever proud of her son’s accomplishments.
And while all of these people have very different life trajectories, there is one thing that they all have in common: They are all extremely content with how their lives ended up.
Drag your cursor over each red dot. Each bar graph shows the corresponding university's rise in sticker tuition price compared to the rate of inflation since 2000. Each pie graph shows the percentage of students who actually pay that sticker price vs. those who receive some form of financial aid. The pie graph will also list the average amount of aid rewarded, either through federal loans/grants and university-allotted aid.
