What’s It Like To Be A College Freshman? Try Broke

[caption id="attachment_26067" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Illustrated by Dominik Vaughan/Youth Radio[/caption] All around the country, high school seniors are just days away from graduation. For those heading to college, that means just a few short months before they get to live experience that full freshman experience: freedom, parties, and crippling fear about college costs. We looked at a 2016 survey of more than 137,000 full-time college first-year students, and noticed a recurring theme: fear over finances has a major impact on freshman. Like how nearly 70 percent said they had "some" or "major" concerns about having enough funds to complete school. [caption id="attachment_26068" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Illustrated by DominIk Vaughan. Based on 2016 survey data collected by The Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA[/caption]   Concerns about the high cost of college are even impacting the way young people choose where they go to school. According to the survey, 15 percent of college freshman said they couldn't afford their first-choice school. In 2004, that number was just 9.4 percent.   [caption id="attachment_26069" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Illustrated by DominIk Vaughan. Based on 2016 survey data collected by The Cooperative Institutional Research Program of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA[/caption]   There isn't data yet available for freshman in 2017, but considering the Trump administration's planned cuts to federal college financial aid programs, those stress levels probably won't go down anytime soon.