College Admissions Essay: My Family's Lack Of Education

All my life, my parents have told me that we don’t have money. They struggle to pay the bills each month, are thousands of dollars in debt, and constantly worry and stress about where they can find the money so that my family is set until next payday. I have watched my dad work up to four jobs at a time while trying to provide for us and make ends meet. Adding to the financial burden, my parents are both the youngest children in their families and became the de facto caregivers for all four of my grandparents, the last two of which have died in the past 14 months. All my life, I have watched my parents sacrifice for my siblings and I, as well as anyone else who needs their help, while they themselves are in need of assistance.

I attribute some of my family’s financial burdens to a lack of education; my mother has an associate’s degree from a community college
I have and will continue to pay for my own schooling because my parents do not have the funds to assist me. I push myself to succeed in my studies, and at the age of eighteen, I have reached proficiency (through the Residential College) in the Spanish language and completed the equivalent of four semesters of LS&A Italian language. I aspire to learn more languages while double majoring in Romance Languages and Literatures and another (undecided) field. I want to ensure that my incredible opportunity to study at UM and have access to some of the leading academic minds and resources in the world is not wasted, and I cherish every second that I spend as a Wolverine. However, I am (like my parents before me) constantly worried about where the money for the next tuition check will come from, and how many extra hours I’ll need to work to purchase a textbook that my professor decided to make mandatory. As much as I love UM, I can’t deny that it would have been easier—both academically and financially— to go to a smaller community