María José Solórzano ’20 couldn’t go home for fall break and doesn’t plan to go home for Thanksgiving. She wanted to — especially because her grandmother was visiting from El Salvador — but tickets from Newark to Los Angeles are out of her family’s budget. “I’ve been pretty homesick since the summer,” she said. “Going back home would be a way to be around people who really love me.”
Solórzano is one of many students who will be without their families during Thanksgiving break for financial reasons. So am I. Princeton has become my home for the school year because I cannot afford to return to my home in Oregon.
The University should take two steps to improve low-income students’ experience during break periods. First, it should provide additional funding for students on financial aid so that they can return home more than twice a year. Second, it should ensure that first-year students know about alternative break trips before applications are due.
I’m grateful that the University gives me generous financial aid. Without it, I could not be here. But for students who receive aid, only two round trips are covered. That means we can go back for winter recess and summer break — but not fall recess, Thanksgiving recess, spring recess, or intersession. The University should expect that students will want to spend some of these breaks with their families, and calculate the cost of attendance — and its financial aid — accordingly.
Until that happens, students like Solórzano will continue to find themselves secluded on campus with nothing to do. Combine that with an absence of friends and family, and you have a recipe for depression.
Fortunately, there are other ways to spend break. The Pace Center, for example, sponsors alternative break trips, for which I am once again deeply grateful.
But I did not learn about breakout trips until after application deadlines had passed. The University should do more to publicize these trips and other break opportunities, particularly to freshmen. RCAs should be instructed to explain break opportunities to their zees. Whereas emails that contain this information often find themselves in a junk folder, RCAs can have in-person conversations to ensure the information will reach all their students. Freshmen, especially those who cannot return home during the breaks, would find themselves knowing what happens during breaks and when to apply. That way, no students will have to spend their first break alone.
The Pace Center has already taken a great step in the right direction. After missing the deadline to apply for breakout trips, I asked the Center if it organized local volunteer opportunities for students staying on campus for break. They said they didn’t — but, as a result of my inquiry, started such a program for fall break.
Alexandra Zalewski ’20, who stayed on campus during break, participated in the pilot program as a volunteer tutor. “I found out more about the community outside the Orange Bubble,” she said. “It gives you the opportunity to explore.”
In short, the University should not forget about students who do not have the financial ability to return home during the breaks. It should expand financial aid so that students can return home more than twice a year — or, at the least, establish a committee that would listen to low-income students and consider this expansion. Moreover, the phenomenal volunteering that takes place during the breaks should be strengthened and publicized in a foolproof way. These two policies would make the University a happier place to be during break. The University should remember that there are students like Solórzano while assigning the amount of each financial aid package.
Mason Cox is a freshman from Albany, Oregon. He can be reached at mwcox@princeton.edu.
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