Tavi

UC Berkeley Senior Class of 2018

Sociology Transfer Student

 

“I feel like I could be a school asset if I were just able to just have a home.” 

 

Tavi, a senior UC Berkeley student in 2018, was able to transfer from community college to UC Berkeley with leftover money from the scholarships that have helped her get through her earlier college years. Because Berkeley’s out-of-state tuition is high, she was in need of more money to pay the necessary costs of attending the university.

 

The situation for Tavi, however, was that Berkeley’s set up of financial aid desensitized students to want to apply for scholarships because when it is put onto the account, Berkeley would assume that you do not need additional loan money and as a result, they would take away that option to students, even though they may actually need it. They reason that because you have this other benefit, that you do not need the loan.

 

This led Tavi to stop finding scholarships to apply for since Berkeley would not assist her needs if she were to attain some more scholarship money. Tavi needed the money now, especially because of her homeless situation, but the problem was that Berkeley loans were given later, thus contributing to her housing struggle.

 

An additional issue that Tavi experienced was that she was considered an unregistered student since over two years, her debt ratio increased and she could not pay the fees that were applied to her account. These fees, once paid, would allow her to attend the next semester. Even though she was unregistered, she was still enrolled in classes that she would still receive grades for. Compared to the other students who were considered registered, she did not reap the same benefits. This gave her a challenging semester as she had to deal with the academic struggles and homelessness that took a toll on her well-being. It was harder for her to finish assignments or to do anything in general.

 

There were days where she could not simply make it to campus to attend classes due to her homelessness. The places that she stayed at were very far from campus to the point where it was rare to secure a ride to Berkeley, let alone be at a reasonable distance to the BART station to Berkeley. If she could not find a place to stay, she would have to stay somewhere on the streets of campus just to attend classes. After reaching out to student housing to see if there was emergency housing available for her, she was faced with yet another issue being an “unregistered” student. Because she was not registered, she did not qualify for the emergency housing which worsened her homeless situation and eliminated any sign of hope for her.

 

If she did not have to go through these struggles and worries, Tavi believes that she would be doing so much better in school.