On December 22 of 2018, the government under the eyes of the US Congress and President Donald Trump went into the second shutdown of 2018. They could not agree on a federal budget due to Trump's high priced demand of $5.7 billion to build a wall along the United States and Mexico border. We are currently, as of January 22nd, in the 32nd day of the shutdown, which is the longest reported in the history of the United States. We, as a country are well aware of the fact that some government workers are not receiving their pay, however, this shut down affects more students than you could even imagine.
Due to the fact that there is no federal budget and the government is fully shut down, this means that students who completed their FAFSA and signed up for the loans for separate semesters are not able to get their funding and that the loan rewards these students received are not being applied to their bills. One of my classmates found herself in this situation. She is paying for college independently and this means that she already has to work extremely hard to stay in this school. When she went to pay for her schooling at the beginning of the semester and sign up for classes, they told her she was short by the loan amount she was given of $8,000. Her loans from the semester were not given to her because of the shutdown and this caused her to have to drop out of school, pack up her things and move back home.
This personally baffles me. Due to the government not doing its job, this friend of mine is not able to continue her education. I have spent time pondering the situation and I have realized that this is most likely not the only case of this happening. There have to be numerous people that this is happening to. So, many people are not able to continue their right to their education because the government decided to shut down over the budget for a wall that will prevent America from being the melting pot that it always has. Something needs to be done and this issue needs to be more well known. Don't let our youth go uneducated because their loans didn't get processed.
